


Take a Bite

by AsterHowl



Category: Ocean's 8 (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, But I never actually mention that they're vampires, Dubious Morality, F/F, I took this way too seriously, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Morally Ambiguous Character, They're vampires, this fic gets pretty dark guys, this was supposed to be crackfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2019-07-24 18:41:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 65,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16180931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsterHowl/pseuds/AsterHowl
Summary: Debbie's back from exile. Lou takes her out for drinks. Tammy hopes no one notices her. No such luck.





	1. Chapter 1

They find a quiet place in the dim light of a room of song and sensuous velvet. Lou watches Debbie’s eyes following the red silk scarves drift about the room on the necks of the evenings offerings and smirks at the glint of anticipation.

“So how was exile?” No one else would dare ask it, and Lou knows she’s being bold by doing so.  
“Long,” says Debbie. Then she looks at her and Lou knows that, yes, she may ask, and yes, Debbie will answer, but that doesn’t mean she won’t pay for it later.  
“Dull,” Debbie adds. She is looking back out at the mingling crowd.

The hotel is glamorous, catering to every vice with exquisite presentation and delivered with an elegance that seemed almost to bleed into the passing of time itself. An hour can pass on the street outside and Lou will feel as though a whole week has gone by once she steps out onto it.

It is for that reason she has not set foot inside since Debbie was forced into exile and why she sits in the lounge with her now that she has returned.  
“I can imagine.”  
“No. You can’t.”

Lou swallows and her jaw tightens. She is looking down at her lap when she hears Debbie say, “It’s not something I’d want you to imagine.”  
There’s a gentle smile waiting for her when she looks up. Against the softly humming music she’s struck by what it must be concealing.

She looks so beautiful. Lou wonders what it would be like to have the kind of poetic sway over language that can capture the way the woman is teasing her senses. She also knows Debbie would be flattered regardless of how she expressed it. She may even prefer Lou to tell her that the flesh she can see through the sheer and sequined dress she wears is getting her slick between the legs than for her to waste words trying to be charming.

Lou sets her hands on the table. “I’ll get us some drinks. What are you after?”  
Debbie tilts her head and a thoughtful, indulgent note passes her lips.  
“What about him?” Lou points helpfully to a young man nearby. Debbie doesn’t glance in his direction.  
“Don’t want a him.”  
Lou is amused. “What’s wrong with a him?”  
Debbie devotes her gaze entirely to Lou. “Get me...”

In the moment Debbie takes her time to consider carefully the exact specifications of her desires Lou thinks it doesn’t matter that she’s not getting a direct answer. Anticipating the request is more thrilling than she expected.  
“Something delicate. Doe eyed.”  
Lou presses her lips together. “In other words...”  
“The opposite of you.”  
“The opposite of me.” Lou shakes her head and pretends she’s hurt but she knows Debbie sees right through her.

A lot of them are young, here for the easy silver they can make. A lot of them don’t want to be noticed. The scarfs make that difficult, but they try. They avert their eyes as she passes. Lou makes that difficult, but they try.

It’s hard for anyone, once they catch a glimpse of Lou Miller, to look anywhere else. Everything about her is naturally accentuated to enchant and mesmerise. From the peculiar angles of her face and features to the bold textures and colours of her sleek attire all eyes linger on her as though she is the fulfilment of long kept promises.

As she stalks slowly through the crowd she looks for it, that concert of rare and overlooked a woman like Debbie Ocean can revel in. They must have known, the instant they saw her, that she is exactly what they are looking for. Lou, and the man coming from across the room, both reach her at the same time.

The woman stares at them both with large brown eyes and for a moment their urgency in reaching her, in claiming her, is suspended briefly to enjoy her growing fear. The way she turns her shoulders to leave as if she hasn’t noticed them, but stops because she realizes it would only delay the inevitable, it makes them both lick their lips.

It is clear from her plain white blouse and modest make up she has tried all she can to make herself insignificant. She smiles at them, because she has been warned by the maitre d' that any complaint against her will not only forfeit her pay but give licence to the offended party to reprimand her however they see fit, short of killing her. She has probably heard stories. Lou imagines her hanging on every word in both horror and in morbid curiosity. It certainly shows in the quiver of her lips.

Lou shakes herself and reaches for the woman’s arm. The man takes the other and they both feel her shudder, and even with the music playing, and the chorus of moans and wails, they hear the whine that escapes on her breath.

“Claude.”  
“Ms Miller.”  
Lou chirps a laugh. His posture draws attention to his suit, and the clear and intended message that his masculinity entitles him to it while she is an imposter in hers. Lou feels the woman lean ever so slightly towards her. A brief glance confirms the increased pressure of Claude’s grip on her arm. Lou loosens her own, her thumb brushing gently across the cheap fabric of her sleeve.

“She’s not your usual vintage.”  
Claude gives her a thin smile. “She’s not for me.”  
“No she’s not,” Lou agrees, and returns his coy smirk.  
Claude’s laughter is soft and polite. “You’re not exactly a woman of singular appetites. You can find someone else. Anyone else, in fact.”

He brings the woman’s arm towards him slowly and firmly. Lou doesn’t tug the poor thing, merely adjusts her stance to move with her. Claude’s patience is thinning and the woman is biting her lips to keep from making a noise.  
“What’s your name, honey?” Lou asks her.  
The woman hesitates to open her mouth. “T-Tamara.”

“Tamara,” Lou repeats affectionately. Impossibly gleaming eyes flick up at her. Lou holds them and lets her see something kind in her own before she says, “You go with the lovely Mr Becker.”  
Tamara’s features freeze. Lou simply pats her shoulder. “Go on now.”  
Claude nods obligingly as he pulls the woman away, who looks back at her over her shoulder. Lou gives her a wink.

Debbie holds out her hands when Lou slides into the booth. “Well?”  
“Oh it’s coming,” Lou assures her.  
“It’s coming?” Debbie asks incredulously. “They have table service now?”  
Lou fits herself comfortably against the edge of the wall and the cushioned seat. Debbie eyes her curiously, but they shift as something flickers in her peripheral.

Claude walks up to their booth, presenting a dashing smile for Debbie, his arm firmly around Tamara who, Lou notes, has become several shades more pale. Debbie gives Lou an unappreciative stare, but then smiles politely as the man reaches them.  
“Well, well,” she says, easing back against the cushion.  
“Deborah.” He is grinning, at first, but then notices Lou sitting opposite. Lou observes the exact moment when things click together in his head. She winks again at Tamara. The poor thing looks so confused.

“Who’s this?” Debbie asks.  
Claude chuckles and shakes his head. “This is for you. A little...welcome back drink. I had thought we could share her. Celebrate your return.”  
“Oh.” Debbie nods. “Did you now?”  
Even as she is toying with her former lover, Lou can see Debbie appreciating the woman he has brought to her table with the subtle licking of her lips.

“But that’s okay.” He knows he’s lost this round and he pretends he’s magnanimous in defeat. “You enjoy her. I brought her for you, after all.” Claude pushes Tamara forward. “It’ll be enough to know you enjoyed her.”  
“I will at that.” Debbie says.  
Tamara is looking at Debbie, briefly unafraid because her emotions are suspended by the same sight that takes Lou’s breath away whenever she is lucky enough to gaze upon it.

Before he leaves, Claude makes sure only Lou can see the promise in fierce, hateful eyes that she will pay dearly for making a fool of him. Then he smiles at Debbie and bows. “Ladies.”  
For Debbie, his departure barely registers. She is admiring her gift.  
“Well. I’ll say this for the guy.” Lou leans an elbow on the back of the seat and slouches comfortably. “He’s certainly got your number.”  
Debbie gives her a stern look.

Lou smirks back at her. “Her name’s Tamara,” she says, because Claude neglected to say so when Debbie asked.  
“P...People call me Tammy.” The moment the words pass her lips she holds what breath is left in her lungs. She’s not sure what will upset or offend them but she’s sure speaking without being spoken to is one way.  
“Tammy.”  
The way Debbie says her name draws out the air she was trying to keep. Debbie pats the velvet next to her. Tammy is too stiff with fear to move. But Debbie is patient. She lifts her arm and lets it rest across the back of the seat as Tammy nervously sits beside her. Fingers feel into her long blonde hair to her fretful sniffling. Lou simply watches.

“Tell me Tammy. How does a woman like you find herself in a place like this, hm?” Debbie asks her. Her voice is soft, her tone sincere. Tammy looks into her dark, ancient eyes and Lou listens to the only heart beating fast between them.  
Tammy swallows. “...W-we needed the silver.”  
“We?”  
“My husband...and I.” Tammy doesn’t notice when Debbie and Lou share a look.  
“Doesn’t your husband have a job?” Debbie’s fingers twirl a lock of her hair.

Tammy’s breath shudders. “Yes, ma’am. Mhm.” She nods. She smiles.  
Lou wonders if Tammy believes the woman can actually smell truth from lies.  
“Why come here then?” Debbie urges gently.  
Lou is already frowning. She thinks Debbie can sense it too, but she’s able to stay calm, stay soft, stay warm. Tammy is smiling and biting her lip. She still thinks they will know if she’s lying.

“He said I had to.”  
Lou hears it in her tone, hears the way he told her, hears the way he backed her against a wall and made her feel that if she didn’t do it that he would leave her, that she obviously didn’t love him enough.

“Is he here?” Debbie asks.  
Tammy shakes her head.  
Of course he isn’t here. Lou knows where he is though. Out on the town, spending the silver she doesn’t know he has, on women she doesn’t know he fucks, because she’s too afraid to think that he couldn’t love her.

Tammy’s arms are still tense at her sides, hands gripping the edge of her seat if only to keep from shaking. “He said I wouldn’t get picked. That it would be easy silver. No one would want me.”  
Debbie nods once, twice, her lips forming a thin, straight line. She leans over and says, “I want you. Tammy.”

The housewife has to catch her breath when she feels Debbie’s hot against her ear.  
“I think...you’re the most beautiful, desirable woman in the room. You are exactly who I wanted tonight.” Debbie says.  
Tammy casts a quick glance across the table. Then looks anxiously at the ceiling and bites her lip.  
“Oh!” Debbie smiles. “Do you think Lou is the most beautiful woman in the room?”  
Lou smirks to herself because Tammy suddenly frets and stammers.

“N...no!”  
“No?” Debbie asks, histrionically. “You don’t think Lou’s the most beautiful woman in the room?”  
Now Tammy is looking across at Lou in horror. Lou has quickly arranged her features into a cold, piercing glare. Tammy looks imploringly at Debbie.  
“No! No, please, I only meant that I-I don’t see how you can say that when...” Tammy looks at Lou again with a helpless grimace, her lashes wet and her eyes sparkling.

Debbie pets her knee. “It’s okay, honey. We’re teasing you.” She leans in closer, bringing fingers to brush away the tears that have started to trail down her cheeks. “But not about you being beautiful. Which you are.”

She is mesmerised. She doesn’t notice that Debbie has released the knot and drawn the scarf from her neck until the exposure to the air causes a sudden, uncomfortable chill reminding her suddenly why it was there, and what it means now that it has been removed. She bucks against the velvet cushion instinctively, the racing of her heart thrumming in Lou’s ears.

“Shhhh...” Debbie hushes her as she holds the scarf out to Lou. They will need to present it to the bar later.  
Tammy’s mouth is open, her breath coming in gasps and winces because Debbie’s grip is firm and frightening in her hair.

Debbie leans in even closer and Tammy whines at the effort it take to override her natural instinct and begin to tilt her head to expose her neck to her. Debbie smiles and brings her free hand up to cup her neck. “Good girl.”  
Tammy shuts her eyes tight, squeezing more tears down her cheeks.  
“You have such a, long, pretty neck,” Debbie whispers to her, fingers combing into her hair before slowly pulling her head aside the rest of the way.

Lou swallows, nails sticking into her own thighs. But as Debbie leans in to feed, Tammy’s hands shoot upward to block her. Debbie leans back as Tammy trembles, hands still up, fingers splayed, anticipating repercussions.  
Debbie waves her hand. “Lou. Hold her.”  
Tammy begins to fret. Lou slides out of her seat and comes around, reaching down for her and scooping her along to make room. She struggles in earnest but Lou gently takes her wrists and brings them down.

“It’s okay, Tammy,” Lou says. The woman twists her shoulders, digs her heels into the carpet, but Lou is too strong, and Debbie is enjoying it. “Hush now.” Lou kisses the top of her head. Debbie enjoys that as well. “It will only hurt for a few seconds, I promise.”

She didn’t mean to say it. Debbie is smirking, shaking her head at her. Shaking her head at the big softy. The look in Debbie’s eyes sends a spark racing up Lou’s spine and snapping painfully at the base of her skull and for a moment she is almost as scared as the woman whimpering in her arms.

“Lou’s right,” says Debbie. Lou releases the breath she has been holding as Debbie strokes the length of Tammy’s tautly drawn neck with the backs of her fingers. “You see, when I bite you, I inject a kind of...toxin into your bloodstream. Among other things, it will dull the pain.”

She keeps stroking Tammy’s neck. Lou kisses her hair. But they are both looking at each other, silently exchanging apologies and forgiveness. Debbie never breaks. She feels just the same as Lou, feels it just as hard. Like all their kind they love the fear, and it can sustain them almost as much as the feed but no one can have too much of a good thing. That which brings pleasure can begin to hurt if it goes on for too long. Lou knows Debbie understands, but she is still ashamed.

The fingers stroking down Tammy’s neck reach a little higher, and cup Lou’s cheek. Lou nuzzles against the reassuring touch. Then Debbie positions herself more comfortably on the seat, kisses Lou on the forehead and lets her teeth pierce the skin on Tammy’s neck.

“Huuuh!” Tammy’s body seizes at the shock. Lou has to hold her firmly but after a while she begins to feel her go slack, sinking into her chest as if she were relaxing in a hot bath.  
Lou releases her wrist and begins to rub her thigh comfortingly. “That’s it. Good girl.” She rolls her head, feeling her vertebrae crack, and listens to Debbie feeding.

She brings her hand up and holds the back of Debbie’s head, smiling. It hits her, suddenly, those five long years and how another piece of her heart withered, dried, and crumbled to dust in her chest as each one passed. She wonders if Debbie knows. Wonders if she could know. If she thought about her at all. But she stops herself. It’s selfish of her to wonder if the woman thought even once about her during her exile and didn’t devote all her energy to her own survival. Some people didn’t make it a year, let alone five.

Tammy suddenly jerks in her arms, fingers curled and clawing into the velvet, pushing, scratching to get purchase.  
Debbie rises. “Hey,” she says gently to Lou. Lou is momentarily distracted by the way Debbie licks the blood from her lips. “Keep her still,” Debbie warns her.  
“Sorry.” Lou picks up Tammy’s hand, so she can’t use it to struggle, and brings it to her lips to kiss her knuckles. The woman is whining again, sniffling.  
Debbie shakes her head with a sigh. “No, it’s okay. Here.” She eases back against the back of the cushion and holds out her arms. “Give her to me. Come on.”

Lou keeps Tammy’s knuckles against her lips, not for her own pleasure, or to comfort the housewife, but because that was when she froze in uncertainty, anxious that Debbie might be frustrated with her. But Debbie’s eyes are soft and she smiles. “It’s your turn. Come on. Give her here.” She flicks her hands invitingly. Lou obliges, carefully lifting Tammy over to Debbie’s waiting embrace. “Here, baby,” Debbie says, cradling her across her body.

Lou watches them. Tammy tries to look up, overwhelmed by the intimacy, the smell of her perfume suddenly filling her senses, the softness of her skin against her cheek, the way long elegant fingers brush the hair from her face. Lou knows then that no one has ever touched her or held her that way in her life.

“How are you feeling, hm?” Debbie asks her.  
Tammy’s breath is slow but deep and regular.  
“Does it still hurt?” Debbie draws a nail lightly across her brow and then scoops the blood trickling from her neck, making Tammy twitch. She makes Tammy watch her suck her finger into her mouth and hum indulgently.

Lou feels Tammy’s hand suddenly squeeze her own. She had forgotten she was still holding it. She understands, too. Debbie can be impossible to fathom. Just when you think you know what she’s thinking you see something else in her eyes and suddenly you’re lost in the woods with no idea how you got there. In that moment she feels at much in her mercy as Tammy.

“Well?” Debbie says. She is looking straight at Lou, absently managing Tammy’s renewed but fruitless struggles. “What are you waiting for?”  
Lou puffs air between her front teeth.  
“She tastes good,” Debbie sings, tauntingly. “Real good. Although, I haven’t tasted human blood in five years so...”

Lou looks for it. Looks for the path she’s strayed from. Debbie doesn’t drop her gaze.  
“It’s him isn’t it,” Lou says finally. “You’re not interested, because he brought her to you.”  
“What do you mean I’m not interested? Those are my teeth marks on her neck aren’t they?”  
“Mosquitoes drink more than you just did.”  
Debbie’s mouth widens in shock and amusement. “Maybe I’d rather see you enjoy yourself, huh?”

“You hate that he knows you. You hate that he can anticipate your needs, your desires, even without seeing you for five years. You think she’s tainted by that.”  
“No.” Debbie’s voice isn’t loud, but Tammy still jerks in fright at the force of her whisper. Debbie winces and regains control of her emotions so as not to scare her unintentionally. “I’ve never tasted anything so exquisite in my life and it makes me want to cry because either I’ve forgotten what it’s like to drink fresh blood or I’ll never taste anything this good again, either way I’m feeling sorry for myself and I can’t deal with that right now. I can’t.”

Lou’s lips part in stunned silence.  
“And of course I hate that he knows me. I hate that he knows me that well.”  
“I wish I knew you that well...” Lou says.  
“Well don’t.” Debbie says. The threat burns in her eyes and Lou winces. “Don’t you dare wish that.”

Debbie doesn’t need to look down to see fresh tears falling from Tammy’s eyes. She has never heard anyone talk about her that way and she cries because it makes lies of the love she thinks she has and she needs to deny it. Debbie cups her cheek and tenderly brushes them dry with the sweep of her thumb, all the while staring Lou down.

“Do you know what I love about you, Lou?” She doesn’t wait for Lou to answer. Lou wouldn’t have been able to think of a response anyway. “I love that you can surprise me. Still. After all these years. I know you, sure. I know when you’re happy, I know when you’re hurting. I know when you’re full of shit and I know when you’re being a piece of shit for my own good. But I can’t predict what you’re going to do. I can’t predict what you’re going to say. I never know where you’re going to come from, or when. I certainly never know what you’ll be wearing.”

Lou presses her lips together.  
Debbie keeps stroking Tammy’s cheek. “But what I love most about you, Lou...is that I,” she lets her hand leave Tammy’s cheek to press against her own chest, “I can still surprise you.”  
Lou feels the pressure of that hand as if it were against her own chest.  
“So, if my love means anything to you,” Debbie says, and prevents Lou responding with the brisk wave her finger, “You’ll start wishing for something else.”

While Lou sits stunned to silence Debbie begins to hoist Tammy up a little onto her shoulder and sweep the hair from her neck. “Now. Take a bite.”  
Tammy’s breath quickens again and Lou feels her hand tug from her grip. Debbie is about to catch her wrist but Lou meets Tammy’s hand with her own, weaving their fingers together and pushing it down as she leans over her. Her lips close over the still fresh wound and as she eases her teeth through already broken skin there is hot blood in her mouth and Debbie’s fingers in her hair.


	2. Chapter 2

The world passes by the window like a colourful chaotic tapestry, though she thinks they probably aren’t even travelling that fast. It only seems like they are because she shouldn’t even be in the car, and the moment she stepped outside her home everything has moved at a lightning pace. 

The car pulls to a stop and Tammy is looking up in wonder through the window. The driver opens the door for her and offers his hand. She looks at it, unsure, but remembers that she has seen women helped out of cars like these in the motion pictures. She feels utterly foolish and utterly giddy at the same time, taking his hand and stepping out of the car. 

“I’ll be waiting right here,” he says, giving her a polite nod and a smile that few men have ever given her in her life. She almost stumbles because she can’t look away from it, but a passing businessman holds her steady. He bows at her as well and then he’s on his way. 

Tammy thinks she had better go inside the shop before she truly makes a fool of herself. The bell chimes as the door swings open. Amongst the gorgeous gowns she has to check she has remembered to dress herself at all because she feels so naked. Her best blouse and skirt may as well have been woven from straw and when she catches other patrons looking at her, she thinks to run back out to the car. 

Their whispers and hushed giggling set her cheeks aflame, but her feet are stuck, her legs like stone. A woman appears, swanning around the counter with the flurry of her hands.  
“Go on! Scram! I’ve got an actual payin’ customer ‘ere!”   
“I-I’m...” Her cursed legs still will not move and her voice is just as stuck. But then she sees the woman shooing the other patrons away, hurling a barrage of insults after them. 

“Welcome! Tammy, isn’t it.” Her face comes right up to hers, cocked at a curious angle.   
Tammy opens her mouth.   
“Yes! It is you! Excellent!” She puts an arm around her, pressing a hand into the small of her back and Tammy has use of her legs again. “Let’s get you sorted, then.”

The woman leads her deeper into the shop, down an isle of magnificent, dazzling frocks on regal mannequins. Her own dress, and her wild dark hair, is covered in flowers, making her appear like some woodland fairy, the kind that could spirit you away.

“I’m sorry,” Tammy says. “What’s going on?”  
“Yer here fer yer fitting, aren’t you?”   
“I’m honestly not sure what I’m doing here.” Tammy quickly fishes into her small brown purse. “I was given this note. It told me to come here.”

It was given to her along with the silver she made the night before. Instructions to wait for a car to pick her up on the corner of a specific street, at a specific time, to take her to a specific location, signed by Debbie Ocean.

She knows who it is from, even if she has never heard the name before. She can still feel the woman’s teeth in her vein, her lips on her neck. Her voice, her perfume, her touch, everything, with startling and determined clarity.

“That’s right. Loves her elaborate schemes, that one. That’s what got ‘er into trouble,” the shop owner says.   
“You know her?” Tammy asks.   
“Is that so surprising?”  
Tammy smiles nervously. “I didn’t mean to offend.”  
“I’m a very influential person, you know. I know lots of people.”  
Tammy fingers the note in her hands. “I don’t know many people at all.”

“Well! My name’s Rose. This,” she shoots her arms out in fanciful directions. “Is my shop.”  
“It’s lovely. Do you...make all these dresses?” She looks uncertainly from the sublime silks and fabrics to the unkempt garden that is her hair.   
“That’s right,” she says, looking proudly about the room.   
“It must take you so long...” Tammy reaches out towards one of the gowns, and quickly draws her hand away as though she hears it hiss at her. 

“Well,” Rose shrugs. “I don’t make every last one. But I do design them all! Now, shall we get you fitted?”  
“What?” Tammy looks at her.   
“Yer gown. For the party.” Rose cocks her head one way, then the other. Tammy is reminded of a bird.  
“Party!” She almost stumbles again. She has to bite her lip to keep from laughing.   
“I ‘ave the invitation right here.” Rose moves back towards the counter, fussing behind it before marching out again. 

Tammy doesn’t know how long Rose wiggles it about in her face, trying to make her take it, but when she does she is struck by the sense that the world is mocking her.   
“Aren’t yer gonna open it?” Rose asks, and adjusts the glasses on her nose.  
Tammy holds the silver envelope in her hands, and steadies herself. She is still unprepared for the way her name appears in the golden ink and elegant script, as though she is unworthy to wear even it. 

Tammy shuts her eyes and chews her lips and Rose touches her arm.   
“Whatever’s wrong?”  
Tammy brings her knuckles up to her mouth. Rose is looking at her with alarming concern, already scanning about her person trying to detect a problem.   
“Why are they doing this?”  
“Who, pet?”

Tammy fans the invitation. The answer is in her tongue but if she gives it a voice she’s afraid it won’t be words that come out.   
Rose rubs her arm. “You mean Debbie. An’ ‘er friend. Sue. No, that’s not right.” She clucks in frustration and holds her hand horizontal in the air. “Tall. The tall one.”  
Tammy traces her finger on the invitation. “Lou.”  
“Right!” Rose is delighted. “Lou. Must try harder to remember that. Truth be told, I’m a bit of a scatterbrain. Lou. Llllou. Lou!”

Tammy is vaguely aware that Rose is still talking, because she is thinking of Lou. She is thinking of Debbie and Lou and the way they looked at each other, the way they both looked at her, and how she feels like someone has sewn their unbeating heartstrings to hers and now that she isn’t close to them it pulls and it hurts. 

Rose begins rubbing her arm up and down. “Tammy. You okay?”  
Tammy shakes her head. “I...I just don’t know what they expect from me. I have nothing.” Her hand drifts unconsciously to the marks on her neck.  
“Y’ can always ask ‘em at the party.”  
Tammy sniffs a small laugh. Rose holds out her hand. Tammy takes it.   
“Which, by the way, starts in an hour. Let’s try on some gowns.”

***

The navy velvet sky meets the dim orange glow of the horizon just after sunset. Tammy isn’t bothered by the city at night. She loves how it comes to life, sparkling, twinkling, flashing. She can walk the streets on the arm of her husband and can pretend that they have come from somewhere lavish. She loves the night because people need to be close before they realize she isn’t anything special.

But she’s not with her husband. And she won’t be walking down the street. She will be inside, in a house full of people who will know instantly that she doesn’t belong there. The driver helps her out of the car and she has to look back over her shoulder before taking the steps to the front door of the extravagant property. 

He gives her an encouraging grin, flipping out the backs of his fingers as a way to move her along. “Go on!” He seems excited for her. Tammy wishes she had bothered to ask his name. The door is already wide open, and, with no one standing waiting to see her in, she goes inside. 

There are so many people, and the only reason she keeps moving forward is because there are too many rooms and she has no idea where she should go. They look at her, like the women in the shop, and she has to check again that she is dressed because she feels like they can see right through her. 

She jumps and gasps audibly when an arm slips around hers from behind. She hears giggling again, but it’s deep and doesn’t make her feel worthless.   
“Sorry. Couldn’t resist.” Lou flicks her hair and sticks her tongue in her cheek. Tammy has to catch her breath, from the shock, and the relief. “Best behaviour. From now on.”

Lou has her hair tied back into a small ponytail, is dressed in a striking black suit and exotic vest and shirt combination and is offering her arm for her to take. Cautiously, and with her fingers trembling, she holds onto her. Lou begins to walk with her.   
“Thanks for coming,” she says.   
“Happy to.” Tammy picks at the back of her neck. “I’m getting silver for this aren’t I?”  
She sees Lou’s tongue poke against the inside of her cheek again.   
“My husband says I should.” She’s pleased that she is able to keep her voice strong.   
Lou begins to nod. “Of course.”  
Tammy smiles to herself. 

She feels confident enough to look about the place. She eyes the art on the walls, the artefacts in the glass cabinets, and all the luxuries about the house with awe.   
“I hope you don’t mind being on my arm tonight,” Lou says.   
“I don’t mind.” Tammy’s mouth is suddenly dry and her voice squeaks. She clears her throat but feels Lou smirking at her and her cheeks burn. 

She let’s herself be guided through the vast central hallway, breathing in air thick with the sounds of timeless voices sharing bygone stories, of cordial laughter oscillating between joyful and sinister.   
She feels a hand on her shoulder and realizes she has been stopped by a wave of nausea and white hot panic. When her eyes can focus Lou’s ethereal eyes are staring back at her. 

The hand on her shoulder feels around her back, down the slope of her gown, but never touches the skin the gown exposes. The pressure there urges her forward and they enter a room where a pianist plays and a fireplace crackles. Amongst the crowd a small group of guests let their conversation disperse like smoke and turn to watch them approach. 

If she weren’t holding on to Lou she wouldn’t be able to move. The look in Debbie’s eyes is one she can feel like fingers clutching her cheeks, and the way Claude waves his glass to the side to look her up and down gives her chills. The couple next to them are unfamiliar, but the man gives her a warm smile and the woman regards her like a work of art. 

“Wow! You look, a-maze-ing,” she says, and Tammy doesn’t doubt her sincerity.   
“You do,” Debbie agrees. “You look beautiful.” There is something immediately unnerving about her voice.   
“Tammy, this is Amita and Asher,” Lou gestures to the couple, who lift their glasses to her. “And of course, you know Debbie and Claude.”  
All but Asher seems to be drinking red wine, but the more she looks at the dark, red colour the more she feels she’s wrong. 

“Of course,” she says to them, then looks back at Amita. “And thank you. I love your jewellery.”  
Amita’s hand drifts to the sparkling earrings that compliment the massive jewel around her neck. “Oh. Perks of the family business.” Then she steps back as though to admire Tammy’s entire frame. “Wait. Is that one of Rose Weil’s dresses?” Amita begins to inspect her. “Oh my gosh, it is.”

Debbie takes a smug sip of her dark drink.  
“I uh...It’s not mine. I have to return it,” Tammy says.  
“Yes, but you get to wear it for a whole night. I would kill for five minutes in a dress like that,” Amita says passionately.   
“And what would you wear for the rest of the night?” Asher asks her, giving her an affection tug with his arm. 

Amita looks up at him with a sly glint in her eyes. “Maybe I wouldn’t need to wear anything at all.”  
Tammy doesn’t know where to look when they kiss.   
“Would you like a drink?” Lou asks her. “Red? White?”  
Tammy has to clear her throat but her voice still doesn’t quite work. “Wh...white?”  
Lou smiles at her and nods before slipping away. Tammy doesn’t realize how tightly she has been holding onto her until she has to catch her balance. 

“So tell us about you,” Amita says.  
“Oh. There’s really not a lot to say about me.”  
“Husband? Kids?” Amita presses, eagerly.   
“Husband. No children.” Tammy senses pity the instant she says so. She is a woman of a certain age and they know, for her, the time has passed. “We tried, but...” If she keeps speaking she will cry so she stops. 

“What does your husband do?” Claude asks.  
She remembers the way he held her. She feels his grip on her arm, tightening as if her capacity for discomfort were irrelevant. He is staring, waiting for her to respond like a pet to instruction.   
“Here.” Lou holds a glass of wine for her to take.   
Tammy turns to her in relief, then notices that she also has a glass of the deep red liquid in her other hand. When Tammy takes her wine, Lou waits for her to sip from it before taking a sip from her own glass. 

“So, your husband?” Claude prompts.   
“Sorry. Yes. He works in the bottle factory.”  
“The factory on fifth?” Asher asks.  
“Yes.”  
“We supply our bottles from there. They’re very good quality.” He is smiling like a Fairytale prince.   
“Speaking of good quality,” Claude goes on, after sipping his drink, “Deb here says you’re the best she’s ever had.”

Tammy coughs into her wine.  
“That is true,” Debbie says, and when Tammy looks at her she sees her smirking before tilting the edge of her glass up to her lips.   
“Maybe you could offer a taste to those of us who have not had the pleasure,” Claude says.   
“Just a taste,” Debbie says, barely above a whisper, her hand travelling up Claude’s chest, fingering a button on his shirt.

Claude hugs his arm around Debbie’s hips. “Not that I have reason to doubt her claims but I would like to see for myself.”  
Tammy sees the way his hand feels around Debbie’s hip, the way Debbie is watching her, and then the way her eyes shift, and she is watching the woman next to her. 

Tammy’s head begins to pound and the walls to spin.   
“Hey, are you okay?” Amita’s voice comes as if through a cloth. Tammy feels herself stumble, but Lou’s arm is around her. Someone takes the drink out of her hand because it was tipping as the strength drains from her wrist and her fingers start to tremble. 

“I’m going to take her outside. Get her some air.” Lou’s voice sounds even further away than Amita’s. Lou positions them so Tammy’s arm is around Lou’s shoulders, and Lou’s is around her back, and she begins to take her through the crowd. 

The cool of the night hits her as they step out onto an ornate balcony. Pots and plants bring a magical element to the stone loveseat where Lou bids Tammy to sit.   
“Deep breaths,” she says.   
Tammy wheezes and flinches away from her.   
Lou steps back to give her space. “You’ll have to forgive Debbie. She’s a different person around Claude.”

Tammy detects irritation in her low, textured voice. She huddles, rocking, and with her arms folded in on her body. “I don’t understand. Did she invite me here...did she do all this just to tease me, to mock me? To...share me with her friends?”  
“Honestly,” Lou says, leaning against the railing and crossing her ankles, “She invited you here for me. Didn’t want me being the third wheel, so to speak. If she’s mocking anyone it’s me. Claude’s just an ass to everyone.”

Movement in the doorway makes Tammy jump. Amita steps onto the balcony, holding her drink in one hand, and the almost untouched glass of white wine in the other.   
“Don’t let them get to you,” she says, and, before Tammy can protest, is sitting beside her and offering her wine back to her.  
Tammy scoffs and take the glass. “Are you talking to me or her?” She flips her hand up at Lou.   
Amita grins broadly, and then chuckles when she sees the look on Lou’s face. 

“Now she’s gonna give me attitude. Great.” Lou uncrosses her ankles and sticks her hands in her trouser pockets.   
“You deserve it,” Amita insists, and gulps her drink. “Letting them get away with treating your date like that.”  
For the second time in the night, Tammy coughs into her wine. “...Date?!”  
“What did you think was going on?” Amita asks her, using the corner of her shawl to dry the wine dribbling down her chin. Tammy doesn’t dare move. 

“It’s not a date,” Lou says, “Debbie organized all of this without telling me. Tammy’s just keeping me company.   
“Oh please. It’s a date,” Amita scoffs and then looks back down at a stunned Tammy. “She was fidgeting the whole time before you got here, checking the front door constantly.” She finishes off her drink and then nods. “It was very cute.”

Lou shakes her head at the heavens.   
Tammy holds her wine with both hands, letting it rest on her knee. She looks down into it. “I’m sure she would rather have Debbie on her arm.”  
Amita’s eyes take on a mischievous quality. “Oh babe. They would both rather have you in their bed.”

There’s an exchange between Lou and Amita she doesn’t hear because there is blood gushing in her ears and she is hot all over. “I...I have a husband.”  
“He knows you’re here, right? He knows all about tonight?” Amita asks.   
“...I tell him everything.” What he knew was that the women from the lounge wanted to see her again. He doesn’t know about the party. But Tammy supposes, the location didn’t matter. It was the people she was with. 

“Well then. Knowing what he knows, he still let you come here tonight. So he’s got to be cool with it.”  
“He wanted me to go so I would bring home more silver.” She doesn’t know why she tells her this. But she feels it is important, that it will reveal something she’s unable to see or unwilling to. 

She thinks Amita takes too long to respond. Her hands smooth the hem of her dress over her knees and her voice is measured when she says, “This is your night. Have fun. You have a gorgeous dress and you look hot as hell. Live it up.”  
Tammy sniffs and her vision blurs with tears so she quickly wipes her eyes dry.   
Amita leans close to her. “Lou won’t do anything you don’t want her to. This isn’t like your night at the Lounge.”

Tammy must look unconvinced because Amita is putting her hand gently over her wrist. “She won’t let anyone hurt you. And god help anyone who tries. I mean, have you seen those rings? They’ll break a skull open.” Amita pats her wrist and then stands, straightening her gown and shawl. 

Tammy doesn’t watch her leave. She is shivering. The air has become suddenly more chill, and since being left alone with Lou all can she can think about is what Amita told her.

Lou pushes off the railing and comes to stand in front of her. Tammy resists looking up at her. She is trying to think of her husband, and it scares her that her mind would rather picture Debbie, would rather picture Lou, would rather imagine what they would do to her if she let them. She doesn’t want to imagine it. She doesn’t want to think about what it means that she can’t stop imagining it. That even knowing Lou is standing right in front of her makes her breath hitch, her heart race, her entire being shake. 

“Do you want to go back inside?”  
Tammy shakes her head. She is trembling so much wine sloshes over the rim of the glass and wets her hands and the fabric of her dress. It doesn’t bother her. Because she feels something over her shoulders. It’s warm and covers the exposed skin on her back and arms, and there’s a hand rubbing down her back as Lou sits beside her. 

Finally Tammy looks at her. Lou is no longer wearing her suit jacket. When Tammy make no objection, Lou’s arm reaches completely around her, and holds her firmly to keep her from shaking in the cold. 

“Amita seems nice.”  
“Talks a lot.”  
“If she’s talking, she’s not sucking on my neck.”  
“Fair point.” Lou gives her a sideways look, and when a smile finally breaks on Tammy’s lips, Lou smiles with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm enjoying the personal challenge of never mentioning explicitly that someone is a vampire. At any rate, the next chapter will probably involve Debbie going to Tammy's home to apologise for her behaviour.


	3. Chapter 3

Now that she is standing at the front door the only thing to do is knock, and while she waits for a response, she regards the peeling paint and cracks in the bricks and mortar with a pitiful sniff. There’s a pot plant sitting on an old milk crate trying its darnedest to be warm and welcoming but she counts only two leaves and they are both brown. 

She turns to attention when the door finally opens, and presents herself with a smile. “Good morning.”  
Tammy stares. Her lips form a tight line. “What are you doing here?”  
“Well,” Debbie looks down solemnly, “I came to apologise. For my behaviour. It was unbecoming. And I’m...” She lets out a theatrical sigh. “I’m ashamed.”

Tammy’s expression doesn’t change. “Was that it?”  
Debbie sucks in a breath through her teeth. “Yes?”  
“Well it sucked. How did you even find where I lived?”  
“The driver? When he drove you home last night after the party and you told him where you lived? The driver I provided for you? I asked him.”

Tammy nods slowly. “You really have everything planned out don’t you?”  
“Down to the very last detail.”  
Tammy cocks her head and smiles sweetly. “Is it part of your plan that I close the door in your face?”  
Debbie pouts and shakes her head. “No. Uhhh. No, it isn’t.”  
“Well, you might need a plan B.” 

Debbie blinks as the door shuts with enough force to catch her hair. She chews the inside of her cheek and looks upward. She can still smell Tammy on the other side of the door. She can almost hear her chewing her nails. 

She knocks again on the door. Eventually it opens, very slowly. Tammy simply looks at her, and Debbie knows she is deeply hurt and expecting to be mocked again.  
“Invite me in?” Debbie asks.  
“I don’t think so.”

“Come on. Invite me in. I want to give you a proper apology.”  
Tammy knocks her chin forward. “You can give it to me from right there.”  
Debbie gives her a glare of frustration and Tammy ducks a little behind the door. At this, Debbie raises her hands. 

“Okay. From here.”  
Tammy’s fingers curl uncertainly around the edge of the door.  
Debbie looks around. “It’s actually very nice here. Got this nice...dead plant,” she feels one of the leaves between her fingers and it comes off. As she’s wiping her hand on her hip she senses the door closing again. 

“No, wait.”  
Tammy’s eyes are narrow and her lips have formed an apprehensive pout.  
Debbie takes in a deep breath and throws her gaze skyward. “Okay. Proper apology.”  
When she looks back at Tammy again she is scowling at her with shimmering eyes. 

“I never intended to hurt you. Tammy.”  
Tammy continues to leer at her from half behind the door.  
“I intended for you to have a good time. For you to...get to know us...get to know our world. Then Claude propositioned me. He wanted his chance to celebrate my return and...I couldn’t turn him down.” She shrugs, because it is not meant as an excuse but an explanation. “He just has this effect on me.”

She can see in the way Tammy’s lips tense that she is considering closing the door again.  
“When he found out that I had invited you to the party,” she pauses to carefully control her tone and be sure to hold the woman’s gaze. “He was pretty eager to make up for the way Lou played him the night before.”

Debbie pains at the realization dawning in Tammy’s eyes. She feels tears begin to well in her own so again she looks upwards and breathes in deeply to abate them. She releases the breath softly and slowly.  
“And he was convincing me that it would be...fun.” 

As she tells her, a tear falls down Tammy’s cheek and drips onto her blouse. For a moment Debbie forgets where she is because all she can see is the patch of damp material and all she can feel is the residual anticipation of the fun Claude promised they would have with her.

“I’m still convincing myself that you were never in danger. That with Lou and Amita there...”  
Tammy swallows hard. There’s little else Debbie can say. So she waits.  
Tammy sniffs and dries her eyes quickly with a shaking hand. “Down to the last detail, huh?”  
“The very last detail,” Debbie whispers. 

Debbie listens to Tammy take three full breaths. The housewife takes a step back, opening the door wider in invitation. Debbie crosses the threshold slowly and continues into the room until she hears the door close shut behind her. She turns, and Tammy has her shoulders against the door, her hands still on the knob behind her back. 

“You always knew I was going to let you in, didn’t you?” Tammy’s voice is so small and ashamed.  
Debbie nods. “Yes.”  
“Do you know what I’m going to do next?”  
“Mm. I have a fair idea.”

Tammy takes a step forward, letting her fingers slip away from the doorknob. She takes two more uncertain steps, fingers tensing into her palms. “Can I get you anything?”  
“Something to drink would be nice.”  
One more step. Then another. She is standing with barely the space between them to take another but she does. Then, in the same motion Tammy tilts her head to one side and sweeps the hair from her shoulder, Debbie cups her cheek with the whole of her hand and applies a firm pressure to right her. 

Amusement and no small sense of pride play on her lips as she grooms Tammy’s hair back to its natural fall. “I honestly thought you’d just get me a coffee or something.”  
As a deep blush blooms on Tammy’s cheeks, Debbie leans forward and affectionately pecks the tip of her nose. She holds her shoulders, squeezing them reassuringly.

She follows Tammy through the house, the worn green carpet underfoot, the old wood furniture and humble decorations combining with the smell of dust and weeks old flowers drooping in vases, and noticing every touch as coming from the heart of a woman who has no idea how long it has been since anyone has appreciated it. Debbie has never felt more embraced by a place than when settling into a cheaply crafted chair by a clouded window and watching Tammy sit and cross her legs, mug in hands. 

She receives a look from her, and Debbie obliges by taking a sip of her coffee and humming in contentment. Satisfied, Tammy continues to sit in silence until finally saying, “I didn’t think you drank coffee.”  
“We’re not machines, Tammy. We don’t drink only what sustains us.”  
Tammy drops her gaze. “I’m sorry.”

“Ask me anything,” Debbie says.  
She watches Tammy thumb the rim of her mug.  
“I can’t say I’ll have an answer for you. But I’ll be honest when I do. Ask me.”  
Tammy fills her lungs with air and puffs it out all at once. She takes a sip from her mug, sets it back on her knee and flicks her gaze at her across the table. “Where were you? Why is it such a big deal that you’ve come back?”

“I was in exile.”  
“What does that mean?”  
“It means. Hoo boy.” Debbie grimaces and takes a gulp of the scalding coffee. “It means I did a bad thing, and I was punished for it, for a very long time.”  
“What did you do?”

Debbie sucks her lower lip into her mouth and clamps her teeth. “I won’t tell you that.”  
Tammy is quiet and Debbie notices her shift uncomfortably on her chair. Then she says, “Where is exile? Where did you go?”  
“Exile is...less a place and more of a process.” Debbie looks down into the murky brown of her coffee.

“Can you tell me about it?”  
Debbie sighs and rolls her shoulders back, arching her spine and then slouching forward again. “Well. For our kind, if you’ve been found guilty of a crime, which I was, I was...absolutely guilty, a bill is put out for your immediate arrest and capture. These people...” It begins to play at the edge of her mind, smoky images, haunting sounds, distant and yet tightly bound to her.

“They are swift and proficient. They are that bill personified. They come for you, they get you, and they take you. No warning. No time for goodbyes.” Debbie pauses because her voice catches in her throat and makes her choke. She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear and perseveres. 

“They make you board a train with no windows. You travel for hours and...the whole time, they are bleeding you. Collecting it in a tank, leaving you just enough that your body feels like burnt wood left in the hearth and could crumble under the slightest touch. Then the train stops, and they make you walk and...it hurts. Every step. They make you walk out into a huge, stone hall. You don’t see the sky. Just a ceiling. They don’t even let you look back at the train. Not that you’d even want to turn your neck. You walk across that hall and into a waiting chamber, right in the middle. There’s maybe just enough room to lie flat on the floor. They make you walk inside and then...they seal it up. And for the next five years, that pitch black room is your whole world.”

She has kept eye contact with Tammy, and spoken matter-of-factly. But she isn’t done. She takes another sip of her coffee and then sets it aside on the table. “Most, don’t survive. A few weeks, a few months in total sensory deprivation like that, unable to move without feeling like your bones are turning to dust inside you, with no access to blood...You are starving and paralysed and alone and it’s unrelenting. Most do anything they can to end it. I’m not sure anyone thought I was coming back.”

She reaches for her mug, but instead of taking it, starts to nudge it about on the table, a little bit at a time. “When you’re let out, they let you drink your own blood. Straight from the tank. They put you back on that train and you hope...You hope that when you arrive back at the station that someone is there waiting for you. Someone you care about. Who cares about you.”

She looks over at Tammy who is quietly crying. But she’s done with her story and now that she’s looking at her, Tammy quickly dries her tears with the back of her sleeve.  
“The dress maker. Rose,” Tammy says, her voice cracking, “She said Claude was the reason you got in trouble.”  
Debbie nods with a regretful smile. “Yeah. That’s true.”  
“Then why...?”

Debbie positions her hand above the coffee mug like a claw, and picks it up by the rim, turns it a little, and sets it down again. “No warning. No goodbyes. I spent five years living in darkness with no way of knowing...” She sighs and looks at a spot across the room. “They don’t know what he’s capable of. None of them do. And I couldn’t warn them. I couldn’t protect them. I come back and...he’s there waiting for me. Waiting, and ready. He must have taken one look at you and known...”

Tammy bites her lip and draws in on herself as if she feels responsible.  
“I don’t want to have anything to do with him. But he knows how to get to me. He knows how to fool me. He clearly still has a use for me and that means he’s not gonna leave me alone. Maybe he was impressed that I actually survived exile. Maybe he thinks he can use that.”

“Am...Am I in danger?” Fresh tears threaten in Tammy’s eyes.  
Debbie smiles sadly at her. “He gives me what I want. Even before I know it’s what I want. That’s how he’s able to control me. The only reason he hasn’t hurt Lou is because he knows that’s the last thing I want. He knows that would be enough to irreparably break his hold on me. I know he wants to. I know he’d love nothing more than to get rid of her but he doesn’t. Because so long as I know she’s safe, then I can be manipulated to trust him.”

Debbie picks up the coffee mug and brings it close to her chest. “I need him to know you’re not just a passing fascination. I need him to know that if anything were to happen to you, that he would lose me forever. But he’s not gonna believe that until...”

She hears Tammy’s heart thumping against her ribs.  
“Well. I need to make him believe it.”  
“And how are you going to do that?” Tammy asks, her voice breaking with the ferocity of her resentment.  
Debbie feels herself flinch but knows she deserves it. “I have a plan.”


	4. Chapter 4

As they file out of the car she does not expect to be led from the street and down a dark alley. Debbie hears the panic in her pulse and her breath and so steps close to her. Before she can put an arm around her Tammy turns abruptly to face her, but the question she wants to ask is stuck on her tongue. Debbie isn’t quite sure what makes her hold it. Maybe she thinks it will be one question too many. Either way, Debbie knows what the question is but won’t answer it. 

Lou is already making her way to the door, thumbs in pockets, the heels of her boots clomping in shallow puddles. Debbie, in less robust footwear, prefers to avoid them, and makes Tammy walk by slipping her hand around her back and holding her hip. 

Lou is knocking on the door, and telling the bouncer the password so that by the time they reach it, the door is open and they can walk in. The strong smell of smoke and plants overpowers Tammy’s senses and she coughs. Tammy is surprised when Lou turns to her, and Debbie watches her try to read the look in her eyes, the sharpness to the edge of her lips. 

She seems entranced as Lou uses a single finger to tuck a lock of her hair behind her ear. “Stay close to Debbie.”  
“Why? Where are you going? Are you leaving?” Her hands lift as though to take hold of her, but they seem too heavy to rise.  
“Potentially. In a manner.”

Before Tammy can demand an explanation, Lou proceeds to lead the way through a curtain hanging across a small doorway. Deep, gruff voices, wild, abrasive laughter, the moan and pant of passionate activity, they walk to the beat of billiard balls clacking and rolling down wooden shoots, as various creatures of the night look up, smelling her as she draws near.

Debbie feels Tammy huddle close to her. They show their interest for only as long as it takes them to recognize that Tammy is clearly already spoken for and that to leer a moment longer would invite retaliation. In any case Tammy has no intention of leaving Debbie’s side, but she can sense in her the anxiety of whatever distance might be drawn between her and Lou. 

They make their way towards a bar located in the centre of the room and the woman serving there throws up the bench to let herself out, greeting Lou by seizing her face and pulling her down for a kiss that would have left her breathless if air were an issue. Debbie senses Tammy’s shock, even before she looks up at her in confusion. Debbie just smirks and lets them take their time because she knows it’s about trying to get a rise out of her.

They part and the woman still has her hand on Lou’s ass as she turns to Debbie and Tammy.  
“Debbie Ocean. Heard you was out.”  
“Nine Ball,” Debbie gives her a courteous little bow. “Pleasure, as always.”  
“Pleasure’s all mine.” She looks up at Lou and gives her ass cheek a squeeze. Lou is purring, nuzzling Nine Ball’s dreads like a cat. 

“Who’s this?” Nine Ball asks, giving a nod towards Tammy.  
Debbie considers giving Tammy’s ass a pinch but something compels her instead to brush her fingers down the length of her hair. “This is Tammy.”  
“You know, there’s a BYO charge.”  
“Oh she’s not for consumption.”

Nine Ball’s eyebrow raises again but the impact is lost because Lou has been planting kisses down the side of her face and is causing her head to tilt more and more to the side.  
“I think you need to take care of her,” Debbie indicates with a smirk.  
“I think she needs to sit her ass down,” Nine Ball says, finally gathering the bundle of limbs that is Lou and shoving her back so she plants herself on a stool. 

Lou leans her elbows back on the counter and tosses her hair, nudging Nine ball with her toes. Tammy does not understand what has gotten into her, and that only makes things more entertaining for Debbie. 

More or less free of Lou’s affections, Nine Ball comes close to Debbie and her smile is warm as she draws her in for a hug. Tammy has to sidestep to give them space. When they part, Nine Ball manoeuvres her mouth close to Debbie’s lips, and when the woman gives her a look, she smirks and lands back on her heels. 

“Missed you, girl.” She holds Debbie’s hands.  
“You too. I love what you’ve done with the place.”  
“Thanks to you.”  
“Well I’m glad I was able to do something good.”

Nine Ball turns her attention to Tammy, who instinctively hugs herself. “So what’s your story, huh?”  
“I don’t...I don’t have a story,” Tammy says.  
“No story?” Nine Ball begins to walk around her, inspecting her from all perspectives, sniffing. “Home maker. No friends. No kids. Husband. A factory worker.” 

Tammy shivers and is now avoiding eye contact. Debbie is shaking her head at the petulant pout on Lou’s face because she’s been made to sit and Nine Ball is out of reach.  
“He puts his arms around you when he comes home from work. He eats the meal you prepared for him. He doesn’t shower before taking you to bed. He showers after, and then leaves. He comes back smelling different. It’s not that he thinks you won’t notice. It’s that he knows you won’t admit you can tell.” Nine Ball has made a full rotation around Tammy whose jaw is clenched tight and whose cheeks are flushed red. 

She thinks they are learning this for the first time, but they knew it the first night they met her. They could smell it on her, smell him on her, smell their life together. Debbie could smell it at their home, her days there, spent desperately clinging to him by staying so desperately quiet. 

Nine Ball is gazing up at Tammy, still swaying as though to music only she can hear. “So what are you ladies doin’ here?”  
“Oh,” says Debbie, glad to be able finally to get down to business. “Actually, we’d like a room.”

“That so?” Nine Ball drifts back over to Lou and gives her an arm to cover with kisses.  
“Just showing my girls a good time.” Debbie begins to frown, watching Lou plant gentle kisses down the length of Nine Ball’s arm and begin sucking on her finger. Tammy is watching too, lips parted, staring. 

Lou draws Nine Ball in between her legs, wrapping her up the way overgrown vines claim a garden fence and begins sucking on the back of her neck.  
“Tell you what. I’ll let you play me for it.” Nine Ball nods towards one of the billiard tables behind Debbie.  
Debbie looks over her shoulder, then at Tammy, and then back at Nine Ball. “Really?”

“Me and Lou. You and your pet.”  
Tammy takes a step close to them both. “W-wait, I’ve never played this game in my life.”  
Nine Ball ignores her. “You win, you get my best suite, room service, the works, all free. And if we win,” she reaches up behind her to cradle Lou’s head in her arm while the blonde nibbles on her earlobe. Her eyes shift sideways. “I get to take a bite o’ your new girl.”

Tammy looks desperately at Debbie who lets her take hold of her hand. “Tammy’s not on the table.”  
“You know the rules here, Deb. Everything’s on the table.”  
“You know if she could, she’d object,” Debbie nods her head to Lou.  
“I’m not gonna hurt her, Deb. I just wanna taste.”

“Debbie,” Tammy paws at her to get her attention, but Debbie is ignoring her.  
“This game is heavily stacked in your favour.”  
“The game is always stacked in the house’s favour.”  
“Debbie...” Tammy whines, because she can see that Debbie’s resolve is weakening. Because Debbie doesn’t want to give Nine Ball the satisfaction that any of this bothers her.

“Okay.”  
“Great. Come on, baby.” Nine Ball takes Lou’s hand and leads her over to the table. She waves a hand and the people playing there scatter.  
Tammy is frowning. “Are you even any good?”  
“Nope.”  
“How is this showing me a good time?!” Her raised voice draws attention and Debbie quickly cups her face and presses her thumbs over her lips to keep them shut. Tammy tries to pull away but Debbie easily holds her still.

“Baller,” she says, still holding Tammy’s face in her hands.  
“Yep?”  
“You make sure she’s comfortable. Okay?”  
Tammy’s brow is furrowed in annoyance.  
Nine Ball puckers her lips thoughtfully. “You admittin’ defeat already?”  
“Baller.”

“Damn, Deb. Don’t you trust me?” Nine Ball is holding Lou’s hand while she’s draped over the smaller woman’s shoulders like a cape and licking her neck.

“She won’t kill me. Right?” Tammy asks quietly.  
“No.” Debbie says.  
“Will she...do to me whatever she’s done to Lou?”  
Debbie shrugs. “Maybe.”

“You ready or what?” Nine Ball calls out.  
“Yes,” Debbie says, putting a hand on Tammy’s back and walking her over to the table. Lou is behind Nine Ball, holding a cue in one hand and Nine Ball’s fingers in the other, licking them all over like candy. Debbie rolls her eyes and picks up a cue. 

“You can break,” Nine Ball says, and then turns her head to pull Lou’s lips against hers.  
“If you think that’s going to distract me, well...” Debbie leans over the table. “It’s working.”  
She launches the cue and the balls crack and clack about the table. The three ball drops into the pocket and rolls into the shoot under the table. 

Debbie walks around the table, coming right up to her opponents. Lou looks up at her briefly, smiles, and then sticks her tongue in Nine Ball’s ear.  
“Excuse me.”  
Nine Ball edges out of her way and Lou goes with her. Debbie leans over the table to line up her shot. The balls change position but none of them go into a pocket. She straightens and tries to ignore the wet noises Lou is making with her mouth. 

As Nine Ball begins to move around the table, Tammy joins Debbie’s side and she’s surprised when the woman feels her fingers between hers and takes her hand. They both feel uncomfortable without Lou. Unbalanced. 

Nine Ball positions herself in front of Lou and leans over the table so Lou’s hands travel down her back and come to hold her hips. The moan that pours out of Lou makes Debbie grind her teeth. Then she hears a ball fall into a pocket.

“At least once this is over you’ll have her back, right? She’ll undo it?” Tammy says to her.  
Debbie just grumbles.  
Nine Ball twists chalk onto her cue. “You’re up, home maker.”

Debbie scans the table. “Here.” With a hand on her hip she directs Tammy to the end of the table. “Hold it like this.” From behind her, she takes Tammy’s arm and bends with her over the table until her hand is planted firmly on the bed cloth. She chuckles. “It’s no good if you’re shaking.”  
“Sorry...” Tammy squeaks.  
“Deep breath.” Debbie urges her to rest the cue between her thumb and finger and take a few slow steadying drives so she gets used to the weight. 

“She better make that shot on her own,” Nine Ball says.  
“It’s all lined up. Nice and straight. When you’re ready.” Debbie leans back up and steps away. Tammy is focussing on her breathing, but her hands are still shaking. When she suddenly takes the shot, the ball she intended to hit misses the pocket, but strikes another ball, sending it shooting across the table and into a cluster, knocking one of their balls into the pocket. 

Debbie comes up behind her with a smirk on her face. “That was...very impressive.”  
Tammy suddenly turns to face her. “I can’t believe I did that! Did you see it? That was incredible! I mean, I didn’t mean for that to happen, but I did it! I got one!”  
There is the sound of chuckling from around them, but Debbie doesn’t want anyone to ruin this for her and throws a vicious glare at the onlookers who crawl back into their seats. 

“It’s you again,” Nine ball reminds them.  
Debbie just smiles at Tammy and taps the edge of the table with her nails. “Go again, hot shot.”  
She lets Tammy survey the table for herself. When she drops another ball the squeal of delight she makes brings to Debbie’s lips an irresistible smile. 

“Beginner’s luck,” Nine Ball says.  
Tammy lines up for another shot and Nine Ball makes sure Debbie is watching when she encourages Lou’s hand under her shirt and over her breast. If Debbie has a line, Nine Ball is flirting with it. She doesn’t even realize Tammy hasn’t made the shot until she apologises. 

Debbie is too proud of her to let her be disappointed in herself. She leans forward and kisses her softly, just at the edge of her mouth. As she leans back Tammy is all eyes and flushed cheeks.  
“You were fantastic.” 

“Off you go, baby.” Nine Ball gives Lou’s ass a pat. “Finish this off for me.”  
They watch something masterful. Lou stalks and stretches with hardly a pause between shots. If Debbie hadn’t seen her hustle more challenging opponents with a flawless game countless times before she would have been suspicious that whatever Nine Ball did to her wasn’t in some way responsible. 

Tammy looks crestfallen. Lou pauses before taking her final shot to look up at Tammy, and Debbie thinks she is trying desperately to convey her regret through the cruel smirk on her face as she strikes the ball, and ends the game. 

Nine Ball hops on the spot and cheers. “Whoo! That’s my girl!”  
Debbie puts her hands on Tammy’s shoulders. “You did better than I did.”  
“I just want this over with,” Tammy says. Debbie feels her words sting, but then Tammy reaches one of her hands up to touch Debbie’s fingers on her shoulder. 

“Hey,” Nine Ball says. “Come join me in the VIP lounge.” She is genuinely playful with Lou as she tries to steer her backwards through the bar and through some heavy, wine red curtains. Lou’s heels strike the edge of the velvet sofa and she falls backwards with Nine Ball bouncing beside her, giggling. 

“Take a seat,” Nine Ball says, gesturing to the sofa opposite.  
As Debbie and Tammy sit down together, Nine Ball clicks her fingers at a clerk nearby. He turns to a decanter on a shelf nearby and begins pouring drinks. He brings the tray over and sets each glass down on the low table between them. 

Nine Ball wriggles from Lou’s affections to take something out of her pocket and drop it into one of the glasses. The liquid fizzes and Nine Ball picks it up and offers it to Lou. “Good game, baby.”  
Lou’s eyes catch the dim light like glittering jewels. She brings the glass to her lips and then tosses back the contents. In the next second she brings the glass down. “You fucking arse.”  
Nine Ball just snorts in amusement. “Oh, come on. I told you. The next time I see Debbie I was gonna make that bitch squirm.”

Debbie’s eyebrows shoot upwards. “Bitch?”  
“Yeah, bitch.” Nine Ball says calmly, easing back with her drink and an ankle on her knee. “Goin’ an’ gettin’ yourself exiled like that. Bitch.”  
Debbie’s mouth is open but Lou is the one who speaks.  
“You didn’t have to bring Tammy into this,” she says, frowning.  
“Oh, relax. I ain’t gonna touch her.”

Tammy looks at her. “Y-you’re not?”  
“No.” Nine Ball waves a dismissive hand at her. “I just wanted to have a little fun.”  
“Well,” Debbie reaches for her drink and holds it aloft. “You got me.”  
Nine Ball is grinning. “Your face was priceless. More than paid for that room you want. If you still wannit.”

Lou is avoiding her gaze, she thinks, because she’s afraid Debbie is thinking about how she behaved, even if it wasn’t her fault. She longs to show her that isn’t the case, and never could be the case, but she also doesn’t want to push if Lou is feeling uncomfortable about what happened. 

When she looks at Tammy, she expects her to be avoiding her gaze too, so she is surprised when she reaches across the table and takes her glass.  
“Yes,” Tammy says. “We still would like the room.”  
Even Lou looks at her in shock. Debbie thinks there are tears in her eyes. Tammy pours the contents of her drink into her mouth, swallows, and immediately starts coughing. There are definitely tears in her eyes. 

Debbie pats her back. “Easy there, hot shot. You’re the only one here who can actually get drunk.”  
“That’s not technically true,” Nine Ball says. “If she was drunk we could get drunk off her.”  
“So,” Debbie says pointedly, “She’s the only one who can get drunk.”  
Nine Ball shrugs. “Jus’ sayin’.”

“You really want to stay here tonight? I can take you home,” Debbie says, hand still on her back.  
“I want to stay with you.” Her response is immediate and firm. “And Lou.”  
Lou sniffs and Debbie catches her trying to subtly dry her eyes.  
“Okay. If you’re sure.”  
“I’m sure. I don’t want to go back home.”


	5. Chapter 5

Lou wonders if Tammy has any idea what she is getting herself into. The night of the party was but a taste of the kind of life Debbie Ocean offered her. They were a curious kind, but Debbie most of all, and Tammy is so painfully unaware of the things she is capable of. What they are all capable of. 

She opens the door, Tammy behind her and Debbie, naturally, keeping them both where she can observe, where she can, in a split second, alter their course, tie or cut the strings spinning their fates, or use them to weave something else entirely. 

Tammy fills her lungs with the decadence of the room. Large, heavy curtains hang over black iron window frames overlooking a black city submerged in evening fog. The dark wood panel walls lock in a heat in which exotic plants thrive and in the middle of the room, a large round bed draped with silk scarlet sheets and adorned with tousled pillows seems to beat like a giant heart gorged with blood. 

Lou doesn’t need to turn to sense Tammy stagger backwards, but Debbie is there, using her body to catch and keep her in place as she closes the door behind them. She doesn’t need her eyes to see the shape Debbie’s lips form, anticipating every sin she could commit on her. 

She notes the door to the left and walks over to it, discovering a large bath amidst glowing amber lanterns and flowers of inexplicable colours. Tammy’s racing heartbeat becomes too much to ignore. She turns now to see Debbie approaching the bed, and Tammy left standing where she left her. 

“Tammy,” she says gently. The woman jumps at the sound of her name, and Lou has to smile and hold her shoulder. “Breathe.”  
She does, instantly, and rapidly.  
“Slowly,” Lou coaches her. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispers with her head down, forgetting that Debbie will hear her. “I want this. I do. I just...”  
Lou understands. Debbie’s demeanour can be unnerving and the change, while never unexpected, can still be confusing. She takes Tammy’s hand and she comes easily with her into the bathroom, and Lou feels Debbie’s eyes on the back of her head. 

She softly closes the door, to give Tammy the illusion of privacy. She goes to the bath and turns the taps, feeling the temperature and letting the water run. Tammy looks at the running bath and her pulse escalates. 

“Lou...”  
Lou lets the woman clutch her arms and she leans forward and presses a kiss firmly against her brow until she calms down.  
“It’s just a bath. Just for you.” She cradles her face in her hands. “As long as you like.”  
Tammy’s lips clamp together. 

“You decide what happens,” Lou tells her. “Okay?”  
She is unconvinced. Her eyes dart to the bathroom door.  
“You cannot disappoint her, or me, by saying no.” Lou rubs her thumbs across her cheekbones and makes her listen. She can feel her trying to shake her head so she lets her hands drift down to rest on her shoulders. 

Her words are so quiet if Lou wasn’t gifted with the ability to hear ants crawl she would have needed her to repeat herself. Instead she runs her hands down Tammy’s arms, gathers her fingers and draws them up to her lips to kiss. 

“That doesn’t matter,” she assures her.  
“But I’m not...very good...”  
Lou feels a tiny piece of her heart break away. Tammy’s skin is flushed from her cheeks to her collarbone and Lou is angry, furious that anyone has made her feel this way. Lou holds her fingers in her hands and her eyes become intense because she needs Tammy to hear her.  
“We want to touch you. We want to bring you pleasure. We want to be good for you.”

If Tammy has anything to say the words don’t travel far up her throat, though her lips move. Lou kisses her brow once more and then gives her a firm look, not letting her go until she receives a nod indicating that she understands and is okay. 

She turns to the door. “As long as you need,” she says again, then leaves her alone with the bath. Debbie is sitting on the end of the bed, hands neatly in her lap. Lou walks over to her, noting the contemplative angle of her head. 

“I want to kill her husband,” Debbie says.  
“Yeah. Me too.” Lou sticks her hands on her hips.  
Debbie looks up at her, not in surprise, but in pride. “You’re good with her.”  
Lou huffs and scuffs her shoes on the rug. “You’re very intimidating.” Debbie smirks because that isn’t the first time Lou has told her so. “You excite her. You make her feel special and she really wants to please you. But you do intimidate her.”

Lou eases herself down onto the bed beside Debbie who makes a thin line of acceptance with her lips. Lou senses she’s trying to find the words to justify her behaviour so she puts a hand on her thigh. Debbie feels her hand over hers and leans into her, head on her shoulder. They hear the running water stop. 

When they start to hear Tammy undressing Lou feels Debbie roll her head up to nuzzle her neck. “I want to go in there...”  
“I know.” Lou kisses her hair and rubs her thigh.  
They hear the lapping of displaced water and Debbie bites down on Lou’s shoulder and she pats her thigh. “Hang in there, baby.”

They sit comfortably in each other’s company, listening to Tammy draw hot water over her body as she tries to relax. They know she’s not ready, but they both want her to know that she can and should be honest with them. Their kind have a natural fascination with mortals and for the longest time that relationship has been bloody. It has been only recently that bonds with mortals have been socially acceptable, and, indeed, a sign of status and power. 

Perhaps, Lou thought, Debbie sees Tammy as a way to re-establish herself in the community. Though, if that were the case, she could have gone after a mortal of higher class instead of a poor housewife. It wouldn’t be far out of her reach. 

“Why her?” Lou asks, without meaning to. She only meant to think it but it fluttered out of her mouth like a butterfly once released from carefully clasped hands.  
Debbie seems to know exactly why she is asking because she leans back a little to look at her. Lou turns her head, gazing back at the dark eyes into which she repeatedly surrenders.  
“Because you like her,” Debbie says, matter-of-factly. “That’s important. Necessary, even.”

“It’s important to me that you like her...”  
Debbie rears back, puffing her hair from her face. She looks away and then utters a small laugh through a worrying grimace.  
“What?” Lou asks.  
“Ah.” Debbie tucks her hair behind her ear as she looks back at Lou.  
Lou frowns. “Ah, what? Deb? What were you going to-”  
Debbie holds up a finger. “Shh.”

“But-”  
“Shh!”  
Lou’s eyes dart to the room door. Their room is the only one in the hallway and anyone coming this way could only be heading for that door. She feels her blood, still, but beginning to chill and her heart, unbeating, but clenching painfully as wards are woven by the approaching presence. 

Debbie points at the bathroom door as an order for her to guard it. But Lou doesn’t want to leave Debbie’s side. Debbie has to jab her finger and glare sternly until Lou silently stands and moves swiftly to the door. 

Debbie stands and faces the suite door, bracing herself, and Lou, too, readies herself. The door opens, because whoever opens it knows that there is no way to sneak up on them. The doorway is dominated by a man, mortal, dressed in the neat and flexible garb of a killer. Lou can feel the wards he cast pressing her back, smothering her senses, burning her eyes and in that second it overwhelms her, in that very split second that she has to blink, he has moved.

Lou has barely a moment to react when a blade comes slicing across her face. With fright she arches aside, and again in the other direction as it hastens to connect with her wherever she puts her body. The killer spins to contend with Debbie. She has lunged from behind but he’s quick, a feat afforded him by the wards that suppress theirs. 

He doesn’t attempt a killing strike, rather, he slips aside to avoid her, ducking low and, when he thrusts, Lou feels the impact nudge her clothing as she flexes her body to dodge it. All she can do is move to avoid him as he moves to avoid Debbie, expertly shifting between assault and evasion. 

Her vision is blurring. The burning is growing, like someone sticking hot pokers through them. She hurls herself over him, rolling on the floor, jumping to her feet. She feels it strike her with so much unexpected force she lurches and grabs for the stability of the bed. She has barely screamed at the pain when she feels him close on her, grab the blade sticking in her side and rips her open with a single savage rend. 

She slips and drops in a heap to the ground where pain bursts again, though, from where, she can no longer tell. She tries to call for Debbie. It’s all she can think of to do. She’ll know what to do because she always knows what to do. She’ll fix it. Somehow, she’ll fix it.

 

* * *

She pins him down, picks the blade out of Lou and slams it down through the middle of his face, holding it there while he jerks, splutters and shudders in death. Then she falls, dropping to the floor beside him, writhing gingerly as the strength of the wards begin to fade. She rests, for a breath, as the terror catches up with her instincts. She pushes herself up on her hands and knees, blinking the pain from her eyes until the patterns of the rug and the growing pool of blood come into focus. 

She sees it oozing around her outstretched hands. There’s a slurp as she pulls them away and kneels back. She scans the spot of the room where she knows Lou fell. She is there, eyes blinking at the ceiling, arms folded over her middle. 

Debbie rises, stepping over the hunter and crouching calmly at Lou’s side. The woman makes a frantic gasp of recognition as Debbie’s face comes into her field of view. Debbie smiles at her, and slips her hand under Lou’s, feeling the woman cling desperately. She smooths the hair from her brow and hushes her. 

“It’s okay. You’re going to be okay.”  
There’s blood in her mouth and it gurgles when she speaks. “Hhk...Dying?”  
Debbie looks her over and shakes her head. “No. Not today.”  
“Feels...Feels like I’m dying.” Lou coughs and chokes, shivering feverishly.  
“Yeah I bet it does.” Debbie makes a face at her, one she might make to amuse a small child.

Lou laughs, but it comes out in meek coughs and splutters. Debbie carefully gather’s Lou’s arm from her middle to lift it and inspect the damage, wincing through her clenched teeth as Lou grunts and pants to endure it. 

“Ooookay.” Debbie scrunches her nose. “Yeah, he got you pretty good there. He’s ruined this suit.”  
Lou grins, teeth stained, but then gurgles and groans, tears streaming from her eyes. Debbie leans over and kisses her bottom lip, heart breaking as Lou tries to kiss her back. She rises to full height and again steps over the hunter. 

As soon as Nine Ball steps into the room, Debbie grabs her, pinning her up against the wall. The woman grunts in surprise but then calmly glares down at Debbie.  
“Really?”  
“How did he get past you? Hm? Did you let him? Did you point him in the right direction? Huh, Baller?”

The hand around her throat does nothing but keep her suspended off the ground. Nine Ball looks at it dripping with blood, and then at Debbie and the deadly fires behind her eyes.  
“Debbie.” Her tone scolds like a mother and she fixes her with a firm look. “Put me down.”  
Debbie’s eyes narrow but then she slowly lets Nine Ball slide down the wall to her feet. When she withdraws her arm, Baller begins wiping the blood from around her neck. 

“You think. After all I went through. Keepin’ your girl safe. While you were gone.” She sucks the blood off her fingers with each pause. “I’d let some damn hunter just take her out? Come on.”  
Debbie spits and folds her arms. She brushes her hair irritably from her face, streaking blood across her skin. 

Nine Ball walks around the hunter. “Hey baby,” she sings reassuringly to Lou as she crouches beside her. Lou tries to lift her arms but they settle back in the crater of blood in her guts. Nine Ball reaches for her cheek and smiles at her. “Don’t move, sweetie. Just relax.” She looks back up at Debbie and throws a thumb over her shoulder. “You need to deal with her.”

Debbie pains at the sight of the bathroom door. She can hear, now, a pounding heart and frantic breath. Before crossing the room she wipes her hands on her shirt and pants. Her fingers feel around the doorknob before slowly turning it open.

Tammy twists away from her with a whine, huddled in the bath, arms up in a feeble shield. There is a rack of towels on the wall beside Debbie and she steps into the bathroom to collect one. She holds it out and open and turns her head away, eyes closed. 

“Here. Come on.”  
She gives the towel a flick to encourage Tammy to stand but she won’t move.  
“It’s okay. It’s over.”  
She counts the seconds. Finally she drops her arms and sighs. Tammy remains against the edge of the bath, drawn into a shivering, naked ball. 

Slowly, Debbie circles around the bath behind her. When she squats down close she can see the tears trickling down her cheeks. Her hand, still sticky with crusted blood, reaches for her hair and very gently makes contact. There is a still a small gasp. Debbie holds still, giving Tammy the time to realize there’s no threat. 

Lou told her she could take as long as she needed in the bath and Debbie realizes that now, even more than before, she needs to respect that. It was all she had during the attack. This porcelain shell, dismally exposed and unsuited to hiding. Not knowing what was going on. How, or why. Who would eventually come in through that door. 

She stays just behind her so she can’t see state of her and gently strokes her hair.  
“What happened?” Tammy finally asks, her voice but breath.  
“There was a hunter. I killed him. Lou’s hurt, but she’ll be fine.” Clear, short pieces of information. Easy to process. Let her get her bearings.  
Tammy’s eyes screw shut, silent tears spilling out of them. On cue there’s a croon of agony from the bedroom. Tammy’s eyes flash open in an instant. 

“She’s being dramatic.” Debbie cringes with regret. Her coping mechanisms aren’t helpful to Tammy. “Actually...” Keeping one hand tenderly on the back of Tammy’s head, she scratches the back of her own with her other hand. She hesitates, because there is a risk, even in her state, Lou might hear her. “Actually, she’s not good. She’ll recover. But she’s...He got her pretty bad.” She nods to herself. “Yeah.” She shrugs. She is dancing around the words that might actually acknowledge how close she came to losing her. A tear suddenly races down her cheek and she catches it quickly with a finger, sweeping it away. 

Tammy takes her fingers off the edge of the bath. Debbie can see in the tension of her shoulders and back muscles that she’s readying herself to stand, but she is still surprised when she does. The water rushes off her skin, and her pale form trembles, but Debbie knows she’s determined and she is quietly in awe of her. 

So much so it takes her a moment to react, standing up with the towel and wrapping it around her body. She keeps hold of her, helping her to step out of the bath. Debbie leaves her only to fetch a silk bathrobe. She is about to turn her head and close her eyes but Tammy simply opens the towel and stands waiting for Debbie to help her into it. 

Tammy’s head is turned away, and her gaze downcast because she is trying to overcome deeply ingrained instincts. Debbie walks back to her. She gets behind her, opening the robe and slipping it up her arms and closing it around her body. Tammy uses shaking hands to tie the rope and then finally looks Debbie in the eye. The look lets her know that she’s ready. Debbie doesn’t think she’s quite prepared for it, but she also wants to get back to Lou’s side. 

The instant Tammy sees the hunter lying on the floor, knife hilt sticking out of his mangled face, she turns into Debbie and muffles her shriek into her arm. Nine Ball has lifted, or helped Lou up onto the bed, and covered her wounds with cloths she got from who knows where. Debbie helps navigate Tammy across the room, positioning her so she won’t accidentally catch a glimpse of the hunter, until they reach the bed. 

Lou is sweating, hair matted, eyes bloodshot, skin a deathly pallor, and she writhes, limbs tensing and flexing in a futile effort to find some relief from the pain.  
“Oh...” If heartbreak had a sound it was the gentle noise that fell from Tammy’s lips. Lou smiles bravely, but can’t maintain it.  
“I’m okay,” she says all at once because she has to grunt when Nine Ball applies a fresh cloth to the wound on her shoulder. Her spine arches off the mattress and tears spring in her eyes again. 

Tammy quickly reaches across the bed, but her hand recoils before touching her face, worried the contact might cause her more pain.  
“Nine Ball.” Debbie flicks a finger towards the door. The bar owner shrugs and slides off the bed to meet her. 

“Where’s John?”  
“Playin’ cards.”  
“I need to get Lou somewhere safe.”  
“She can stay here.”

“I’m sorry. I said, I need to get Lou somewhere safe? Not, I need to leave Lou in the precise place she was almost killed?”  
Nine Ball’s arms fold and her foot taps and there’s a pout on her lips. “You know, I came as soon as I felt it. Everyone went crazy.”  
She can hear them now. Murmurs gathering like clouds against the ceiling downstairs. 

Debbie sighs. She knows Nine Ball cares for Lou. Cares for her, too, but pretends she doesn’t and that suits Debbie fine. She sees Nine Ball wipe the corners of her eyes with a fingertip and sniff resolutely.  
“Tell John to ready the car. Tell me you didn’t let him drink.”  
“Lime and bitters all night. He’s fine.”  
“He’s a good boy. Okay. Go.” Debbie gives her should a push.

When Nine Ball leaves Debbie returns to Lou’s side, bending over her and placing a soft touch to her cheek to get her attention. Tammy is half sitting on the bed, propped on her hip, her hand in Lou’s fingers. 

“We gotta go, baby.”  
Lou’s brow wrinkles and her eyes shudder. Debbie touches her shoulder as though to help her up.  
“No...”  
“Baby, we have to.”  
“I can’t move, please...Don’t. Please, Debbie...”  
Debbie hesitates.  
“It hurts. I can’t...”

Next to Lou, Tammy’s lips are tightly shut, but her eyes are so loud it’s unbearable. She wants to explain things properly to her, so she doesn’t feel so useless, so she can help, in some way, however small. But Debbie doesn’t have time, and so she has to accept the horror on her pretty face when she tucks her arms under Lou’s body, ignores her desperate pleas not to move her, and pulls her up off the bed to a strangled shriek. She doesn’t need to order Tammy to follow. She comes with her as though a chain links her neck to Debbie’s wrist. 

“Holy fuck.” John stares aghast into the rear view mirror and then twists in the driver’s seat. “Ohhh fuck.” There’s shock, fear, and rage all clamouring in his voice as Debbie does her best to settle Lou comfortably in the back seat, letting her lie with her head resting in Tammy’s lap.  
“Who...?” John asks.  
“I don’t know. I killed him.”  
“Fair play.”  
As gently as she can, Debbie tucks Lou’s long legs up into the car and then shuts the door. 

When she joins John in the front he asks, “She gonna be okay?”  
“She’s gonna be fine.” Debbie looks up into the mirror, too. Tammy’s delicate fingers trace soothing pattern’s around Lou’s face.  
“You sure?”  
“Yes. Let’s go.”


	6. Chapter 6

Debbie looks back in through the bedroom door where Tammy sits at Lou’s side, feeding her blood from a bowl with a spoon while she lies propped up in a large four poster bed. Tammy is still dressed only in the silk gown from the suite.   
“Thank you.”  
“Of course,” Amita says.

“He was strong. Experienced. Expensive.” She looks back at Amita, furious. “I’m gonna kill ‘im.”  
“I thought you did already.”  
“I’m talking about Claude.”

“You think Claude did this?”  
“He went straight for her.” Debbie points at Lou. “Didn’t even touch me.”  
“Well, honey, that’s because you were too good for him.”  
Debbie grits her teeth. “Nuh uh. No. She was targeted.”  
“Listen to me. Sweetie.” Amita’s voice is perfectly calm, and Debbie actually feels better hearing it. “You know what hunters are like. You know their tactics. He went for Lou because she’s, and please don’t take offence, the weaker one.”  
A look that would make others cower only makes Amita arch an eyebrow.   
“She’s a baby compared to you. The wards affected her worse than you so he knew; take her out first. Then deal with you.”

With those words, adrenalin finally filters from Debbie’s system and she shakes. “He was going for it. The kill. If I reacted a split second later...”  
“But you didn’t. You threw him off, just in time. Well. Just enough.”  
“Can you look after them?”  
Amita frowns. “Debbie, don’t.”

“I just need to talk to him. I need to ask him. I need to know.” She keeps talking because Amita keeps trying to interrupt her. “Please, just, look after them. I’ll be back soon.”  
“No.” Amita grabs her arm and pulls her back around when she tries to leave. “Debbie. Think about it.”

“I am thinking about it. It’s all I can think about,” she says, tapping crazily at her own skull.  
“Claude is a lot of things but he’s not stupid. You know he’d never touch Lou.”  
Debbie scoffs stubbornly.   
“Does he want to? Sure, he does. I bet he dreams about it. But a hunter? Debbie. He would sooner kiss Lou’s feet and call her ‘my Lady’ than give a hunter the satisfaction.”

Debbie is frustrated that Amita is so reliably able to reach the rational part of her brain. But she is also grateful, and that ability to talk her down is part of the reason she came here.   
Amita senses that she’s not entirely satisfied, however. She reaches out to touch her arm. “I can invite him here. You can talk to him. And I can make sure neither of you start any shit. Alright?”  
Debbie nods. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Now. You need a bath, you look disgusting. My god.”  
“Well, I recently killed someone, you know.” They begin to walk down an extravagant hall lined with portraits and cluttered shelves.   
“Oh, you did?”  
“Yep. Protecting my girl.”  
Amita swoons. “So heroic.”  
“Thank you.”

Amita leaves one of Asher’s shirts and his night gown for Debbie to wear once she has bathed. The considerable height difference between the two women makes an exchange of clothing difficult, and, Debbie thinks with a smirk, the sight of her in an overlarge shirt and trailing gown might put a smile on Lou’s face. 

At least the gown is soft and comforting, and it smells mostly of Amita anyway. She walks down the hall to the lounge in bare feet, finding Amita and Asher chatting pleasantly with a recently arrived Claude. He is amused by the sight of her and stands from an armchair with a smile, drink in his hand. 

“Debbie. I like this look on you.”  
He looks smug. Debbie wonders if Amita told him what happened. She is standing also, putting her hand on Asher’s arm and directing him away.   
“We’ll leave you kids to talk.” She leaves the room, giving Debbie a signal with her eyes that she won’t be far. Claude’s confusion at their sudden departure brings a frown to his face.

“Deb? What’s going on? Are you okay?” He steps forward to meet her approach, and his genuine concern breaks her resolve.   
“No. I’m not.”  
He puts a hand on her arm, looking her over as though he might be able to detect the problem on her person. 

“There was a hunter.”  
The moment she says the word he is frozen. She thinks she can see his eyes bleed over red with rage. It suddenly hits her again, the brutality of the attack, how sudden it happened. The wards were powerful and disorienting and none of the details are clear, the memory fractured, like the reflection in a broken mirror and not being able to access it scares her. That was another cruel trick of the wards. The slow corruption of memory of the encounter, so any who survive would not learn from it.

“It’s okay. I killed him.” She says it because she needs to repeat it, to reassure herself, because now she can’t remember it properly. She can only remember saying she killed him. She’s quite sure she killed him. Tammy will know. She needs to ask Tammy. She doesn’t realize she has turned to look for her until Claude grabs her shoulders.

When he draws her into his arms she finds herself leaning into him, relieved to let someone hold her. He doesn’t say anything. He nuzzles her hair with his jaw and breathes her in.   
“I thought it was you,” she sniffs, ashamed of herself.   
“Me?”

She parts from him but his strong hands remain at her waist. “Lou’s hurt. He went right for her and I thought it was you who sent him.” She wants to cry.   
Claude touches her chin with the back of two fingers. His eyes trap hers. She can see him trying to suppress a snarl, his lips, every so often, pulling around his teeth. He can’t speak so he shakes his head instead. 

“You swear.” Her voice quivers.   
“I swear. I would never send a hunter...I could never.”  
Debbie believes him. She hates the idea that a hunter would be so brazen as to choose a known haunt to launch his attack. She’s certainly never known one to do so. Then again, perhaps it is only that she cannot remember one doing so.

“I’m sorry,” Debbie sniffs, and clears her throat.   
“No. I don’t blame you for thinking I had something to do with it.” Claude puts one hand around his chest and holds up his drink with the other. “I can’t exactly say I’m not disappointed Lou survived.”

Debbie glares at him, though she can only laugh at his honesty. “You think about it don’t you. You think about killing her.”  
“Oh constantly.” He shifts his weight on his heels and extends a finger from the glass. “I think about...chaining her up from the ceiling, bleeding her near dry.” He looks upwards, a dreamlike bliss washing over his eyes. “Then releasing her into the grounds and letting my dogs hunt her down, watching her struggle to run.” He finishes with a wistful sigh. 

Debbie narrows her eyes. “You are truly an artist.”  
“Thank you.” He dips his head with a small bow.  
“Well, it’s a good thing you have such strong self control.”  
“She’s no threat to me. To us. I’d just prefer to have you without the tag along.”

“What about Tammy?” She wishes her voice didn’t sound so afflicted.   
Claude just smiles. “I’m the one who thought she’d be perfect for you, remember?”  
She does remember. “As a snack. Not to keep.”  
Claude shrugs and steps close to her again. He trails his finger down a lock of her hair. “True. I didn’t think you’d grow so attached. But I don’t mind. She’s pretty. Has that perpetually cornered look in her eyes. Perfect to share.”

She pulls back a little when he tries to kiss her.  
“No?”  
Debbie shakes her head.  
“Why not?”  
“She’s mine. I like having something that’s just mine.”  
“I thought that was Lou.” There is irritation in his voice.   
“Lou doesn’t belong to me.”

“And Tammy does? Doesn’t she have a husband?” Claude reminds her. “How does he feel about all this?”  
“Oh he’s being looked after. He gets his silver.”  
Claude scoffs and takes a heavy gulp of his drink, hissing through his teeth. “No amount of silver makes up for the humiliation a man feels knowing his wife is being seduced by another woman. Let alone two women. And apparently, you’ve been giving him the silver he could use to do something about it.”

It staggers her. She looks at him, and at first, he thinks she’s judging him and he frowns defensively. But then it dawns on him too and his jaw stiffens. “I’ll kill him.”  
Debbie puts her hands flat on his chest to stop him. “No.”  
He holds, shoulders heaving, hands in fists.  
“We don’t know for sure.”  
“I know. I’m sure.” He is growling through clenched teeth.

“You are sure, aren’t you...” She curls her fingers on his chest.  
“If I find out he tried to have you killed, I will tear him apart.”  
Part of her doesn’t want to stop him. If she had lost Lou she would have destroyed the world. And if Tammy’s husband really did hire a hunter, if he was so determined to get rid of them, he could keep trying. 

“Find out. But before you do anything, let me know. Please. If he did do it, you need to give me the opportunity to do something about it.”  
He holds her gaze and nods, understanding, appreciating that she deserves no less. “Go on.”  
She tilts her head curiously.   
“Be with her.”  
Debbie grips into the fabric of his shirt, rises up on her toes and gently kisses him. 

Tammy is still sitting on the bed at Lou’s side. The bowl from which she had been feeding her has been set aside on the night stand, and there is a gentleness to their voices as Debbie walks over to the bed. Tammy falls silent, noticing Lou’s eyes find Debbie and remain fixed on her, a tired smile on her face. 

Debbie stands on the opposite side of the bed to Tammy and simply smiles back at Lou. She is propped up on pillows, her ashen face has been blotted dry by the cloth in Tammy’s hands, her neck and chest too. She is stripped to her underwear so they can monitor her wounds more easily. A tangle of silvery veins bloom like a grim flower around the stab wound on her chest, a silver that now infects her once blue eyes. 

Tammy is looking at her, and wants to ask Debbie something but is afraid to in front of Lou.   
“It’s argentum poisoning.” Debbie eases herself down on her hip as she answers the question Tammy won’t ask. “A hunter’s weapons are made of pure silver. It cuts through us like butter and leaves this infection. Don’t worry. So long as she keeps feeding it will flush from her body.”

Lou smiles. “Good to know.” Her voice is strained.   
“Is that what’s effecting her memory?” Tammy asks. It’s clear they have been talking about the attack. Debbie imagines Lou must have asked what happened to her, how she got here, and Tammy, confused, has filled her in.  
“No. It just prevents the wounds from healing as they normally would. If one of us escapes a hunter...we don’t get far.”  
“Then what...?”

“The wards.”  
Tammy winces. “Oh. Right.” Of course she knew about them. It was one of the first things mortal children learned to make them feel safe in the dark. They don’t have to worry about anyone coming in because every house had been blessed by a protective ward, keeping out uninvited guests. They grow up on bedtime stories about heroic hunters who slay the wicked and rescue maidens. 

“I need to ask you something,” Debbie says to her.   
“What?”  
“I need to know if I killed him. He didn’t escape, did he?”  
Tammy cringes. “Oh. You definitely killed him.”  
Debbie sighs in relief. 

“You really can’t remember.” In her tone Debbie can sense she is fascinated, and sad for her.   
“I can remember pieces. I can remember my eyes burning, my body going stiff, slowing. I can remember seeing him on top of Lou. And I remember throwing myself at him. But not much more.”  
“I was no help,” Lou says. “I don’t need to remember to know that.”

“Not true,” Debbie says. She gestures between the wound on her chest and the wound hidden by the bed sheets. “You clearly provided a good distraction.”  
Lou’s eyes drift close and a grin tugs on her lips but her laugh comes out in a grimace of pain. “Oh, don’t...”  
Tammy is compelled to smile too, but hides it by bowing her head.

“Would it help...” Tammy draws patterns on the bed sheets with a curled finger. “Would it help if Lou fed from me?”  
Lou’s eyes are on her in a shot. “Tammy...”   
Debbie draws her finger and thumb together above Lou’s mouth. “It would.”  
“Debbie.” Lou’s voice, although barely above a sickly whisper, still penetrates. 

Debbie uses a stern maternal tone. “Lou.”  
“I’m fine.”  
Debbie simply lifts a hand and pats Lou softly over her middle. Lou bucks and a strangled, almost soundless shriek of pain drags up her throat. Tammy snatches Debbie’s arm.   
“Stop! Why would you do that?!” 

Lou’s eyes are shut tight, jaw clenched, a long sob leaking through bared teeth. Tammy suddenly realizes she is gripping Debbie’s arm and releases it like it had begun to burn her skin. She holds her hands up and bows her head and when she says sorry it is in a tiny stricken voice. 

“Lou. You aren’t fine. You won’t heal drinking preserved blood from a bowl.” Debbie leans forward and sweeps fingers soothingly across her matted hair. Lou breathes in to protest again but Debbie cuts her off. “You need fresh blood, baby.” She leans in more, letting her fingers flutter softly down the edges of her face until their foreheads touch. 

Lou is trying to say she won’t. Trying and failing because she’s in pain and is realizing now the brave front Debbie has been putting on and now she’s scared. Debbie leans back a little. “You’ll be gentle. Okay? We’ll make her comfortable. Hm?”   
“Lou.”   
Lou’s eyes flick in an instant to the source of the voice.  
“It’s okay. Really.” She swallows and gives quick resolute nods of her head. “I want to. I want to help you.”

“...Okay.” She gives Tammy a brief smile, blinking a tear from her eye. Debbie once again traces the edges of her face with her fingers.   
“Okay,” she says. 

Debbie sits back and turns to Tammy. For the first time words fail her because it has been a frantic past few hours, and she has been trying, desperately, to hold it together. Tammy just puts a hand on her shoulder. Debbie reaches up for it, holding it there as tears of gratitude well in her eyes. Then she coughs and clears her throat. 

Lou is too weak and her wounds make it difficult for Debbie to make them both comfortable. But she finds an elegant way. She stands, removing her gown. Tammy tries not to watch her disrobe, but Debbie can see the blush on her cheeks and smirks. She lets the gown rest on the edge of the bed and then hitches up her shirt.

Lou bravely stifles moans of pain as Debbie, carefully as she can, straddles her. She lets Lou get used to her position, winking at her when Lou looks down the opening of the loose shirt.   
“Is this okay?” she asks her.  
“Yes,” Lou sighs. It exhausts her to talk.   
Debbie pats the bed in front of her, next to Lou. “Here. Sit.”  
Tammy obeys, and follows Debbie’s directions. She sits facing the wall, so Debbie can cradle her as she leans back. Debbie smiles down at her as she sweeps her hair back gently, as though she were bathing her. 

“I’ve got you.”  
“R-right. Yes.” She smiles, but it disappears quickly when Debbie, arm supporting her back, lowers her another degree. Her hands grip the edge of the bed tightly and hums fretfully. When her hair hangs loosely, Debbie feels her hand up to her cheek and makes her turn away from Lou. 

She makes another noise, because not being able to see it coming compounds her anxiety. So when she urges her neck against Lou’s lips, she steals Tammy’s mouth in her own. Her eyes flash wide in surprise, and then when Lou bites down Debbie takes her cry of pain with her tongue. 

As the toxins flood her bloodstream Debbie breaks off the kiss. She comforts her with whispers, telling her she’s okay, thanking her for doing this. Tammy hums faintly in acknowledgement. Debbie strokes the edge of her face, and then lifts her hand to brush Lou’s hair. Her lover is lost in the taste of her, lost in the instinctual demand for nourishment to combat the infection. 

She knows her strength is returning when Lou brings her arms up from under the covers, and claims Tammy’s body, drawing her in. Debbie is soon able to release her, and she takes Tammy’s hand in hers, stroking her arm comfortingly. 

As the night wanes, Lou has vacated the bed, and clothed herself in what loose garments she could find the least unappealing in the wardrobe by the wall. Debbie tucks Tammy into the bed and kisses her temple before going to join Lou across the room. The woman’s brow is furrowed and her lips form an angry pout.

Debbie watches her shift her weight restlessly. She sees shame still broiling in the blue restored to her eyes. She has never been attacked by a hunter before. She’s never even been close to a hunter before. They are dangerous but, mercifully, rare. Although, Debbie is certain their rarity is only an impression left by the missing pieces of their memories. 

“It’s okay to be scared, Lou.”  
Lou scoffs and hugs herself.   
“They terrify me. I really thought that was it for both of us.”  
“Yeah but...if I was-”  
“If you were, what? Stronger? Do you think that makes a difference?”

“You killed him, didn’t you?”  
“I got lucky.”  
“I was useless.” Her lip quivers.

“You were not useless. I know. I can remember.” Debbie takes a step forward. “I can remember you drew him away from me. You knew he wasn’t going to leave you alone and you used that. You used his own tactic against him.”  
“I don’t remember.” Lou sniffs and frowns in frustration. “It keeps slipping away just when I...”  
“I can remember. You are not useless. You are not weak. We got through it because we had each other.”

Lou turns and walks gracefully towards the tall bedroom window. Debbie waits before joining her, slipping her arms around her middle from behind and resting her chin on her shoulder. Lou feels where her hands weave together and holds them.   
“Is that what we do to her?” she asks. “When we bite her? What the wards did to me...It was so hard to move. It felt like I was falling into some dark place inside my own body. Like I was trapped.”

“You’ll have to ask her.”  
Lou isn’t satisfied with that answer. “You know.”  
Debbie sighs. She turns Lou around in her arms, one hand on her hip, the other on her shoulder. “So do you. Think about it, Lou. The way you felt...Do you think you’d ever want to go through that again? No. Not for anything. I don’t care how much you love me. And quite frankly, screw you, I would never put myself through that again for anyone.”

Lou sniffs and bites her lips because she’s determined to be dour and doesn’t want Debbie to see her smile. Debbie gives her an affectionate shake.   
“She didn’t have to accept my invitation. If her experience at the lounge that night was truly as terrible as what you’re imagining, she could have ignored it.”

Lou’s eyes look over Debbie’s shoulder to the sleeping form in the bed across the room. When she sniffs again, the longing look in her eyes mutates into something far less tender.   
“Is Claude here?”  
“Fuck. I mean, no.” Debbie grimaces when Lou’s eyes narrow and she bites her tongue incredulously. 

Lou leans in and begins sniffing her.   
“Okay that’s...very rude. Stop it.” She flails her hands, pressing her hand over Lou’s face to push her away. “We just talked.”  
“Uhuh.” Lou darts forward, striking like a cobra, licking Debbie’s lips. 

“What are – hey!” Debbie flails her hands again, shooing her back while Lou spits and gags in disgust.   
“Ugh. Gross. Bleh.”   
“Very mature.” Debbie wipes her mouth, brushes herself off and flicks her hair back in place. “I needed to talk to him. That’s all.”  
“Oh you did? You seized that opportunity while I was indisposed?” 

“Okay, normally, I find jealousy deeply attractive on you. Gets you all,” Debbie holds her hands either side of Lou and waves them up and down indicatively, “Sardonic and snarly.”  
Lou sticks her hands on her hips and her tongue against her cheek.   
“But all we did was talk. And I gave him one tiny...teeny tiny kiss.” Debbie puts her thumb and finger very close together and squints through the gap. 

Lou isn’t amused. “You can suck his cock for all I care.”  
“Well, he will be pleased.”  
Lou throws her hands up and walks away from her in a slow arch.   
“Lou, I thought he sent the hunter after us. After you. I needed to know.” 

Lou turns around and points a finger at her, voice oozing between her teeth. “That’s the problem.”  
Debbie waits patiently for Lou to explain. Lou palms her brow and looks at the floor. Then she returns it to her hip. “I suppose he would have found out sooner or later.”

She looks up at Debbie, because the silence she maintains is difficult to interpret, but Lou finds that her expression is even more so and all she can do is keep talking.   
“It was bad enough, the way he’d look at me. Like I was undeserving of my own skin. That if he could only peel it off, everyone would see I was nothing but rot inside.” Her voice gets quiet and savage. “Now when he looks at me, he’ll also know that I’m weak and pathetic and an easy target.” Her blue eyes are framed with the wet redness of loathing and she is shivering with rage. “He might even pity me,” she spits. 

She holds Debbie’s gaze, but she gets no response. Debbie watches the integrity fail in the spite she’s trying to direct at her, watches it crack and crumble away and reveal the fearful woman behind it.   
“You’re right,’ she says finally.  
The skin under Lou’s eye twitches.

“He will always think those things about you. No matter what. But it’s not the way I feel about you. I hope what I feel about you means something to you. I know this thing...” Debbie waves her hand in front of her chest because the words catch in her throat. “This thing I have with Claude isn’t fair to you. At all. But I am trying.” A smile flickers on her lips. “You know I’m trying. You have to know...” By the time she utters those last words her voice is all but breath.

She delicately dabs the back of her knuckles to her eyes. “I wish you could remember how brave you were. Laughing in the face of death.” She taps her head gently. “The wards couldn’t take that from me.”  
She glances towards Tammy, her peaceful form a tiny mound in a giant bed. She doesn’t look back at Lou as she leaves.


	7. Chapter 7

The room is empty when she awakes and she doesn’t at all remember falling asleep or how she got into bed. When she moves, the dull sting on her neck brings with it the memory of being held and being kissed and she aches. 

The high ceiling and the tall walls of the room make her feel so completely small. The sunlight through the towering window makes the floating dust twinkle. She spots clothes laid out at the end of the bed and slides out from the covers to investigate. 

They look tailored and expensive but care has been taken not to controvert her preferred personal style. The thought makes her feel a little self conscious. She dresses into the soft cotton blouse with its little pearl buttons and slips into the pair of slender trousers, appreciating the softness and suppleness of the fabric. 

She takes a black hair clip in her fingers and admires the rows and rows of tiny sparkling diamonds. She bites her lip and sobs joyfully, trembling almost too much to properly unhitch it.  
“Here.”  
Tammy turns and Amita walks up to her, holding her hands out for the clip. Tammy gives it to her and lets Amita draw her hair back.  
“Thank you,” she says as she hears the lock fasten. Amita’s hand sweeps down the back of her shoulder.  
“You’re welcome.”

“I will have to give them back to you.”  
Amita quirks her head and smirks as though she’s misheard. “What?”  
“Especially this,” Tammy feels the clip in her hair. “There’s no way my husband won’t make me sell it...”  
Amita puts fingers to her temples. “Oh my God, your life is so sad I need to lie down.”  
Tammy smiles sheepishly. “Sorry.”

Amita holds her hands up and makes a series of preventative noises. “Don’t apologise, you’re making it worse.”  
Tammy bites her lower lip.  
“Okay. From now on, this is your room.” Amita begins to stride across the floor and Tammy has to turn. 

“What?”  
“This, your wardrobe. I’m going to fill it with outfits. Stylish, but, modest.” Amita waves a hand up and down, gesticulating at Tammy’s appearance as she approaches another corner of the room. “This dresser, covered in jewellery, perfumes, all yours.”  
“But I-”  
“Don’t live here? Debbie doesn’t actually have a permanent residence, and Lou has been between here and Nine Ball’s for years. Trust me. You live here now.”

She breathes in and touches her chest, overcome.  
“Honestly, though, I don’t actually want to let you leave,” Amita confesses, “But when you do, you can leave your things here.”  
“I don’t know what to say.”  
“Please say nothing. Every time you open your mouth I want to cry.” 

She nods, but she feels an anxiety pressing at the edge of her joy. “Where’s Lou and Debbie?”  
Amita turns Tammy about, straightening her blouse, picking strands of her hair. “Lou, is sulking in the parlour going through all my spirits.”  
“And Debbie?” she senses that she won’t like the answer before Amita tells her.  
“She left.” Amita stands back to admire her work with a critical finger along her jawline. 

“Where’d she go?”  
“Probably to a lounge.”  
“Probably?” Tammy imagines Debbie’s arms around a stranger, lips sealed around the neck of another. “She’ll be back soon though, right?”

“She always comes back.”  
Tammy follows when Amita waves her to come. “Did something happen?”  
“They had a bit of a fight, that’s all.”

Tammy remembers the smiles the women shared with each other, the adoring and deeply trusting look in Lou’s eyes when Debbie settled over her. Amita has noticed Tammy’s confused expression and smiles in reassurance.  
“It wasn’t a bad fight. The reality of the attack just caught up with them both.”  
She remembers huddling in the bath. The sounds beyond the door. Waiting, in that long stretch of silence, for that door to open. 

She feels a hand on the back of her shoulder again.  
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to remind you.”  
“No that’s okay.” Tammy smiles unconvincingly.  
When Amita leads her into the parlour Lou is sitting on a large dark sofa bent over a coffee table pouring a crystalline liquid into a glass from a decanter. She is quite obviously dressed in one of Asher’s suits and this, as well, seems to contribute to her sullen expression.

It unnerves her when Lou doesn’t acknowledge her arrival at all, and simply takes the glass and leans back to drink from it.  
“Hey.” Amita walks behind Lou and easily plucks the glass out of her hand before it even meets her lips. “You’ve had enough.” She glides across the room and takes a sip from it herself. Then she points across at Tammy. “Get off that skinny ass and show Tammy around the courtyard.”

They walk together slowly, and even among the chorus of breathtaking plants and flowers and stunning statues, Tammy cannot look away from Lou. Her head is turned up to the sun, her eyes closed, and she is basking in the light. 

“It doesn’t burn?” Tammy asks her.  
Lou hums in amusement, arching her neck to increase her exposure to the sun. “People still hold that belief?”  
Tammy chews her lip shamefully.  
“We can’t generate body heat. The warmth is nice.”  
They circle past a fountain. The shimmer in the arching jets of water seems to be a response to the call of Lou’s vivid and intense beauty. 

Lou catches Tammy staring and chews her lip through a smirk. “I need to thank you. For last night.”  
“Oh. Pff.” Tammy waves her hand dismissively.  
“I didn’t know how bad it was.” Lou scoffs.  
Tammy hesitates. “Debbie didn’t want you to worry. That’s all.”

“Yeah. She shelters me from a lot of hard truths.”  
Lou sits on a stone bench overlooking the rest of the courtyard and the edge of a vast moor. Tammy joins her. She sits quietly, fingers gripped over the stone’s edge, then clasps her hands together on her lap.  
“I heard Amita mention that you were younger than Debbie,” she says.  
Lou laughs. “Younger than Debbie. Younger than Amita. Younger than Nine Ball.” She scans the moor bitterly. 

“Is that so bad?”  
“Usually? No.”  
“How old are you?”  
“Rude.”  
Tammy smirks cheekily. “Oh come on.”

Lou looks back at her, the light in her eyes showing amusement and also delight that Tammy is feeling bold enough to ask.  
“Including my years as a mortal? I’m only about eighty years old.”  
“Well you look good.”  
Lou sticks her tongue behind her teeth. “Flirt.”  
Tammy’s heart does summersaults.

Lou sits up straighter. “Debbie is nearly eight _hundred_ years old.”  
Tammy can’t compare her own thirty odd years with a number so high in any meaningful way. Lou snorts at the look on her face.  
“That way you’re feeling, that crushing insignificance....I feel like that all the time.”  
“No wonder Nine Ball called me Debbie’s pet. Relatively speaking I’m a newborn puppy.”  
“Cuter though.”

Tammy blushes instantly. Lou chuckles.  
“Can I ask...how it happened?”  
Lou’s eyebrow arches. “How what happened?”  
“How you came to be what you are.”

Lou leans back. “Ah. Well.” She stretches out her long legs and twists them at the ankles. “There’s a happy tale.”  
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”  
“I needed silver.” Lou says, and even through her casual manner Tammy detects something uneasy in her eyes that she doesn’t want Tammy to notice. “I was desperate. I knew a lounge wasn’t going to accept me so I went to a bar.”  
Tammy stops herself from asking why, but Lou hears the words she keeps in her lungs.  
“I was...unhealthy. The bar let me in. I wasn’t there long when a man approached me. He and his friend bought me drinks all night, then passed me around to get drunk off the spirits in my system.”

Tammy cringes.  
“They were too drunk to realize they were killing me. Nine Ball stopped them, but by then I wouldn’t have survived. She forced her own blood down my throat and...” Lou slaps her knees.  
“Nine Ball saved you?”  
“I was ‘unauthorised’. Nine Ball had to sell the bar to pay the fine or risk a month in exile and my execution.”

Tammy feels her gut wrench. “They would do that? Just kill you? Just like that?”  
“One of the reasons Claude hates me so much. I should never have been given the gift.”  
Tammy watches the breeze play gently in Lou’s hair. She thinks of the way Nine Ball used Lou to taunt Debbie. A way of reminding her, in the least subtle way that, no matter what, Lou would be forever connected to her.

“She has a bar now, though,” Tammy notes.  
“Debbie. Before...She was able to help Nine Ball get her bar back. And invest in it.”  
“She has a funny way of showing her gratitude.”  
Lou snorts. “She just doesn’t want people knowing she’s actually very, very sweet.” Her smile fades, though, and Tammy feels Lou takes hers with it. “It wasn’t easy. Nine Ball did what she could to keep me out of trouble but I knew associating with me was dangerous for her. I had to find my own way.”

Tammy smiles. “Is that when you met Debbie?”  
“I met Debbie around...I guess, fifteen years ago now.” She sees the surprise on Tammy’s face. “Yeah, not long in the grand scheme of things. I got by mugging the mortals I’d feed on. Then I’d take myself to the fanciest lounges, flaunt my silver and my illegitimacy in their faces.”

“I bet that didn’t go over too well.” Tammy smiles fondly.  
“One night, some people took exception to my flagrant disregard for how ‘our’ society works.” Lou sniffs and smirks to herself. Tammy feels so invigorated in her presence. 

“What happened?”  
“They decided I needed to be removed, by force. From the lounge. From the world, perhaps. I took exception to that.” She winks at Tammy.  
Tammy feels her heart flutter.  
“I threw a punch. Out of nowhere Debbie grabs my fist,” Lou punches her fist into her own hand to demonstrate, “She just appeared in front of me and I felt like I’d hit a brick wall. Her grip was so fucking strong. I’d never seen a power radiate of a person like that, and she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. The look in her eyes scared me and thrilled me.”

Tammy’s hands clench tightly together on her lap. She can recall that look in an instant and even in her mind it is still as chilling and as intoxicating as Lou describes.  
“She didn’t have to say a word. They all understood that I was hers. And I’ve been hers ever since.”  
Tammy unintentionally releases a small sigh. She look out across the tamed and pretty courtyard to the wild and foreboding moor.

“What’s it like, being given the gift?”  
Lou makes a thin, grim line with her lips. “You feel yourself die.”  
Tammy did not expect the answer to unsettle her so much. In Lou’s deep, majestic voice it resonates in her gut.  
“You’re conscious, your every sense is magnified a thousand fold and you feel your body, each individual cell, die. You can’t move because your muscles are dead. You can’t breathe because your lungs are dead. You lie there, being dead, but you’re conscious and you feel everything and it hurts.”

Tammy catches herself drawing in a breath to both reaffirm and savour the feeling of being able to. She thinks about Debbie telling her about the process behind being exiled. It occurs to her that exile is all about emulating that experience again, reminding them of being mortal, of having to live through every excruciating moment of their own death only to keep them stuck in that state.

“Do you regret what happened to you?” Tammy asks.  
“I regret the way it happened. Everything leading up to it.” Lou brushes off a leg, an arm, sweeping away lingering sensations Tammy can’t begin to imagine. “But I don’t regret that it happened.”  
They will live forever. Tammy thinks about growing old, slipping away, god willing, peacefully in her sleep, and that assured lasting tranquillity. 

But she thinks, too, of their eternal beauty, and hers, such as it is, fading. How long could this, whatever it was, whatever fascination these creatures had with her, last.  
“What was your fight about?” she asks. Lou’s eyes, pale in the sunlight, turn away from her. “Amita told me. Was it about Claude?”

Lou leans forward on her knees again. Her fingers become rigid like talons and she throttles the air in front of her. “I hate him.”  
“I don’t think anyone doubts that,” Tammy says, and her voice, filtered through a gentle smile, makes Lou look back at her, and appear entranced by whatever she sees. Then she chuckles deeply.  
“It bears repeating,” she insists. 

“You know, Debbie came to my home.”  
Lou quirks an eyebrow.  
“It was the day after the party. She came to apologise for her behaviour.”  
“You let her in?” Lou sounds so surprised.  
“God no.”

Lou snorts and appears proud of her.  
“She made me feel so terrible, like I was nothing but a joke. A sad little joke she dressed up to parade in front of her friends all for a good laugh. I’d honestly never felt so small in my entire life.”  
Lou’s features soften with shame.  
“When she showed up on my doorstep...part of me was still so overjoyed to see her.” 

She senses in the woman sitting next to her that she empathises with that feeling. The happy bubbling of the water fountain plays behind them, and the silent moor looms before them.  
“But her apology sucked so I slammed the door in her face.”  
Lou smiles.

“But she managed to convince me.” Tammy twists and interlocks her fingers. “I don’t know whether that’s her power or my weakness, but I let her in. She told me about her exile, though she didn’t tell me about her crime. I must say the fact that she feels that whatever she did can be worse than everything I’ve imagined terrifies me. She also told me about Claude. That he terrifies her. I think, about that at least, she was sincere. I got the impression that she’s in a precarious situation, that she’s doing what she can to keep you safe. You, Amita, everyone she cares about.”

Lou wrinkles her nose. The silence stretches for so long Tammy forgets that they had been talking.  
“I know,” Lou says. “We all know, we’re better off not knowing. Whatever it is that we don’t know, we shouldn’t know. We know that if Claude suspects we conspired in the slightest way to get between him and Debbie...” She looks down at her hands. “He lets her love me. It’s probably the smallest mercy he shows her and I can’t even be grateful for that.”

“You shouldn’t have to be. That’s a sucky arrangement.”  
They both turn at the sound of Debbie’s voice and Lou swears because she’s standing only an arm’s length behind her. Debbie has her hands tucked deep into her coat pockets and she shuffles a heel on the gravel. “Snuck up on you there, huh, Lou? That’s not a good sign.”

Tammy watches Lou suck in her bottom lip, watches her gaze falter, her jaw twist.  
“Show me.” Debbie bends at the hip to look into Lou’s eyes and the woman tries half heartedly to avoid her. “Aha. Silver. Go on. Amita will find you someone.” She nods her head to the side. “Go on.”

Lou stands, hugging herself. She hurries back towards the manor, head down, without a word. Debbie smiles at Tammy.  
“Hi.”  
“Hi.” Tammy is shocked at the wistful quality to her own voice.  
“You look nice.”  
Tammy feels her whole face, ears and neck blush so hard it leaves her dizzy. 

Debbie sits with her, facing towards the manor so she can make sure Lou goes back inside.  
“Thanks. For what you said,” Debbie says, and gestures after Lou.  
Tammy frowns and looks down. “I’m not sure if I believe it.”  
“That’s good. Smart. I lie a lot.” 

“I was worried,” Tammy tells her, “Scared even, when you weren’t here.”  
Debbie hums through a broad smile. “You’re scared when I’m gone. You’re scared when I’m right beside you.”  
She becomes aware of her heart, pounding so hard, so fast in her chest that she has to press against it with a fist. 

She looks up towards the manor, a gentle stone giant sitting under a blue sky amongst the birds and the flowers. “Can she hear me?”  
“Probably not in her condition.”  
Tammy takes a moment to gather herself. 

“I wasn’t a gift for you, was I? I was a gift for Lou.”  
Debbie bites her lips together. She nods.  
“Lou didn’t play a trick on Claude. He played a trick on her. He knew you were back. And he knew Lou would be there at the lounge with you. Lou couldn’t have fooled him...”

Debbie has been nodding. “Lou’s not...not terribly aware of her surroundings. He watched her, waited for her to pick someone in the crowd. He made Lou feel like she was rescuing you,” Debbie reaches up and traces her fingers around Tammy’s ear, pressing her palm against her cheek. “Made her feel that she’d gotten the better of him, to make you all the more enticing. She could flaunt her victory over him, just by keeping you close.”

Debbie draws her hand back to her lap and looks up towards the manor. “I knew it the moment he brought you to the table. It crushed me. I had to let Claude believe his little scheme was going to work. I had to let Lou believe that he knew me that well, when really, the only reason he brought me exactly what I wanted was because he watched her pick you out.”

“I’d just got back from exile,” Debbie continues, beginning to fidget anxiously. “All that time, quite literally petrified that he was going to hurt her, and the moment, the moment I get back, he begins scheming against her. Like waking from a nightmare, into a nightmare.”

Tammy looks down. Debbie’s hands make stiff, rigid motions and she reaches out to still them with her own. Debbie pauses, acknowledging the touch with a fleeting smile. She breathes in deeply and sighs with a shudder. “It hurt. Pretending I had no interest in you, this precious, beautiful gift from the woman I love.” She shrugs. “Because I fell for you. Instantly. Deeply.”

Tammy chews her lips and utters a small bashful laugh.  
“But I needed Claude to think it was working, because his next idea might not be so...restrained. That’s why I invited you to the party, why I set you up with Lou, why I acted like...”  
Tammy cautiously reaches out and rests her hand against her back. She realizes that this is the first time she has actively sought to touch her, to want to give her the comfort of that contact with her, for whatever small comfort it provided. 

“It has been so hard, Tammy. I needed you to be wary of me, to even hate me. I needed you to draw closer to Lou. I needed you to believe that my only interest in you was superficial, to humour Lou, as a pawn in my plot to remove myself from Claude’s grasp. I needed you to resent me for that because it would make your bond with Lou stronger, out of necessity. If Lou finds out Claude used you to trick her...”

Tammy winces and her chest burns. The thought of Lou rejecting her, discarding her out of her hatred for Claude is too much to bear. Rocks fill her throat and it hurts to breathe. 

“Everything I’ve done has been to maintain the deception. On him. On her. On you. We live a long time so he’s very patient. But Lou...You know now that she’s illegitimate. There are those who need only the slightest provocation to execute her on the spot and would be celebrated for it. He won’t need much. She could do something, say something, however small, and that could be enough. He’d kill her.”

“Is that all you’ve done?” Tammy asks. “Maintained the deception? Isn’t there something you can do to...”  
“Get rid of him?” She laughs. Her hand slips out from under Tammy’s and settles over hers. She pats it twice and gives it a squeeze, and even though she is smiling, she also isn’t hiding the hopelessness in her eyes. “For now, the most important thing to me is keeping Lou safe. Keeping you safe. Amita. Rose. John. Even Nine Ball, the little...scamp.” 

Tammy indulges in a chuckle with her, because they both know she was going to use a less flattering term, but said with no less affection.  
“You idiots are the most precious things in the world to me. I would die for you. But...Lou would die without me. My influence is the only thing keeping her alive. It’s the only reason I don’t just kill Claude myself.”

Tammy lets the hand on Debbie’s back slip down into her lap as she looks out at the moors. She sees something strong and enduring and not as frightening as she’d felt before. 

“So you’re in love with me, huh?”  
“Did I say that?”  
She looks at Debbie because there is a sting of doubt, “You said...”  
Debbie is smirking at her.  
Tammy starts crying and laughing and collapses over Debbie, nuzzling into her shoulder. “Don’t tease me like that I can’t handle it.”

Debbie pulls her into a firm embrace. “I also called you an idiot. But, you know, it’s good that you focus on the positives.”  
Tammy laughs again. Debbie kisses her ear and draws her tighter, rubbing her back. Tammy clings to her, allowing her eyes to close, to feel, finally, safe in her arms.


	8. Chapter 8

“You really think her husband sent that hunter after you?” Nine Ball turns her shoulders so she can walk next to Debbie and avoid the crush of the crowds jostling around them.  
“Pretty sure.”  
“And you sent Tammy back to him?”  
“He’s not going to touch her,” Debbie assures her. “He knows we’d come after him.”  
“Unless he kills her and runs,” Nine Ball says, her voice low. 

“Where would he go that we couldn’t easily track him down?”  
“Know what I think?” They have to stop because the flow of the crowd cuts across their path briefly. “I think you’re afraid.”  
“Afraid...”

“That hunter almost got your girl. You don’t want to risk another one succeeding where he failed even if it means putting Tammy at risk.”  
The carpet, worn down by the persistent trample of feet hides years of stains. The smell of blood and spirits is almost overpowering.   
“’S true though, isn’t it,” Nine Ball says, because Debbie hasn’t denied it. 

“Of course I’m afraid.” Debbie says. “I’m taking a risk. I can’t protect them both and I made the safest choice I could under the circumstances. Either I take Tammy away from her husband and deliberately provoke a man I believe tried to have me and the woman I love killed, or I give Tammy over to that man along with the five hundred silver he’s come to expect for letting his wife entertain us and hope that’s enough to keep him happy for a day or two.”

An amplified voice fills the entire floor. A bell is struck and people begin shouting, jeering, cursing, because silver is on the line. Debbie hesitates on a step as the wards begin weaving from the room they are about to enter. She feels Nine Ball grab the sleeve of her coat as she, too, is struck by it. She shakes her head to regain her senses and they help each other across the floor.

“Why you always gotta be messed up in some complicated shit? Why can’t you just spend a few decades, you know...chillin’. Relaxin’.”  
“Where’s the fun in that?”  
“Know what your problem is?”  
“Oh. She’s about to solve the mystery.”  
“Lou’s never been enough for you.”

Debbie makes a tight line with her lips. “I think you might need to keep the case open, there, inspector.”

Crowds press several bodies thick against the wirelink fence fixed around a balcony, fists in their air, hurling their voices at the arena below. Nine Ball takes Debbie closer.   
“How do you even know about this place?” Debbie asks her.  
“You’re like, a billion years old. How do you not know about this place?” Nine Ball scoffs. 

Tiered platforms around the fence permit a vantage point from where they can see over the balcony and into the arena. A hunter and one of their own are engaged in an unarmed fight. The hunter seamlessly negotiates evasive and aggressive manoeuvres with the weaving of his wards, while their kin depends on his own natural ability and the support of a young woman standing on the outside edge of the arena, whose finger and hand motions suggest that she is breaking the wards almost as fast as the hunter is weaving them. 

“Technically, this is the only legit way for a hunter to make an honest living,” Nine Ball explains. “This place sprung up almost immediately after the Duchess declared hunting illegal.”  
“Well, that was only a few years before I was exiled, so...” Debbie peers down across the shoulders of the raging spectators. Occasionally, it is hard to focus, but the woman breaking the wards is keeping up with the hunter. 

“What do you even need Tammy for anyway?” Nine Ball’s tone is conversational.  
“Lou loves her.”  
“Lou loves tailored suits and tacky jewellery.”  
“And mild mannered housewives, apparently.”  
“There’s somethin’ you’re not tellin’ me.”

“I’m sure you’ll sniff it out eventually,” Debbie says.  
While the brutal ballet of the fight draws the attention of the crowd, Debbie is drawn to the virtuosic skill of the young woman counteracting the hunter. In all her years, Debbie has very rarely seen anyone breaking wards before. Though it is possible she may have forgotten seeing it.

“She belongs to the owner,” Nine Ball says. “He’s not gonna give her up easily.”  
There’s a swell in the volume of voices as the hunter is knocked down and pinned. A bell sounds and Debbie watches their kind take out a blade a cut a mark into his own arm.   
“He does that to remind himself that he won that fight.”  
Debbie frowns. Her fractured memories still haunt her. She is certain she has lost a piece or two since the day before.

“Can we get down there?” Debbie asks. She can see more revellers jumping about and shaking each other in celebration of a successful bet. The young woman at the side of the arena has disappeared into the crowd, but Debbie can still track her scent.  
“Sure, this way.”

Nine Ball shows her out of the room and to a stairwell.   
“So how do you know about this place?” Debbie asks as they head downstairs. “You’re not blowing away my investment are you, Nine Ball?”  
Nine Ball makes a noise resonating somewhere between smug and apprehensive. “I told you. It was hard work keepin’ Lou outa trouble while you were gone.”

“Oh. I see.” They move from the stairwell into a large basement level. The wire fencing from the balcony continues all the way down to the basement floor, creating a large cage in which the fighters compete on a raised platform typically used in boxing rings.   
“Look,” Nine Ball says, “She didn’t get to compete. I stopped her before that could happen. And, obviously, she doesn’t remember much about it now. So, you know...maybe go easy on ‘er.”

Debbie glides through the crowd, focussed on her target. “Well she’s grounded, I’ll tell you that much.”  
The young woman is sitting at the bar, sipping a drink through a straw, long black hair around her face like sheets of black velvet. An amplified voice announces the names of the fighters in the next match, and that this is their last chance to place a bet. The fight will start in five minutes. 

The young woman doesn’t seem to be in a rush so Debbie assumes she won’t be involved. She slots herself between the woman and the next stool over, because it is currently occupied. The young woman looks up at her. Something in her eyes stays Debbie’s tongue. She watches the young woman make short work of her drink, give a loud sigh of satisfaction, and then nod at her. 

“Okay. You seem strong. We can do a deal.”   
Debbie’s eyebrows shoot upwards. Nine Ball quickly bites her mouth shut to keep from laughing.   
“Old, right? Way old. Eight – no – nine...Nine hundred?”  
Laughter is bursting from Nine Ball’s puffed cheeks.  
“Eight. _Almost_...eight hundred,” Debbie insists.   
The young woman just shrugs at her. “So, old.”

Debbie simply smiles, and holds out her hand. “Debbie Ocean.”  
“Mm.” The young woman drags her sleeve across her mouth. “Constance. If you wanna be one o’ my fighters it’s a thousand upfront. Depending on the skill o’ the hunter you may not get a good margin. But if you win you get your thow plus ten per cent of your winnings. If the crowd like you I keep you on for ten more fights and you can start earnin’ twelve per cent.”

Debbie maintains her polite smile. “I assume you can offer all this in writing.”  
“Sure. After your first fight. Show me whatcha got.”  
“After the fight, huh? After I’ve been exposed to several dozen wards and forgotten what we agreed upon?”  
Constance’s heart rate increases in spite of the stoic facade.  
“Let me tell you how I think all this works, and please, correct me if I’m wrong,” Debbie says, looking out amongst the crowd and the arena. “Now, this is only the first I’ve learned a place like this exists but I’m gonna give it my best shot. Here we go.”

Debbie flexes and cracks her knuckles and gives her hands a shake. “You pull one of us in. They’re always young. Never older than ten, twenty years, because their memories are practically mush after exposed to just a few wards. Maybe they refuse, at first, but then they’re back the next day because they forgot they already had the idea to come here. But you remember, and you know a little bit more about them, and you get better at convincing them to accept these ridiculous terms.”

Constance nods to the bartender to indicate she would like another drink. Debbie continues because she knows she’s listening.   
“You take the thousand silver and they sign a contract. You hand over their copy in an envelope along with the details of the first match. But win or lose they never see that silver again because by the time they open it, they can’t remember the details of the contract they just signed. Because you stall, just long enough, in that meeting with your boss, and the only thing in that envelope is a slip of paper telling them where to go, when to be there, and that a contract is guaranteed only if they win.”

The bartender finishes pouring the drink and Constance scoops it into her folded arms on the counter. She starts sipping through the straw.   
“And then there are those times when your boss orders you to go easy on the breaks. Let the hunter win. It’s not often, because he wants everyone to know you’re the best at what you do, you know, to attract those desperate newborns, but sometimes, sometimes when there is an exceptionally skilled hunter, it’s not unreasonable for the punters to believes that our poor young kin was just not good enough. Because they don’t know. They don’t know how it works. They don’t know how it would happen in a real fight if you could break those wards the way you do. No matter the skill of the hunter. Because, and I might remind you that you can correct me at any time, the truth is far, far scarier.”

“We would always win,” Nine Ball finishes. Constance turns her head, slowly, in her direction. Debbie watches her curiously because there is something in the way Nine Ball is holding the young mortal’s gaze, something in her voice that knew more than Debbie could know.   
“But you know that. Don’t you Constance.” 

“Yeah.” Constance croaks. “Know all about that.”  
Debbie closes her eyes. With one less sensory distraction she can sense what Nine Ball has determined about Constance’s life. She can smell her every interaction with various people present and not, from weeks, months, years ago, but the trace of two people in particular have faded completely, but for left over sentimental trinkets. 

“How did they die?” Debbie asks.   
Constance looks back at her, eyes narrow. “Which time?”  
It hits Debbie hard. “...Fuck.”

Debbie and Nine Ball wait in the street a block down from the den, reminding each other constantly of the details, because their exposure was minimal, and brief, but that didn’t matter. Some memory loss was assured. They learned long, long ago to always say it. Always say it out loud. I sensed a hunter. I escaped the hunter. I killed the hunter. Report the details to the most important person listening; yourself. 

Debbie is confident they have remembered all the details this time. They may not remember it actually happening, but they remember saying that it happened. They are waiting for Constance, and they know she’s close. She finally emerges from the ally beside the den, hands in pockets, hood up, and at a brisk pace across the square to meet them. 

Debbie takes her to a tavern. One thing should could hear over the crowds was the rumbling of the young woman’s stomach. Constance orders several meals and when they arrive, begins picking from all of them. Debbie and Nine Ball nurse glasses of spirits. 

“My parents were both hunters. I was six when they were cursed. Didn’t get their wards up fast enough. You guys’s idea of poetic justice I guess.” Constance pauses to suck oil and salt off her fingers. “So, obviously, they couldn’t weave anymore. So they taught me everything they knew. Only...”  
“It affected their memory,” Nine Ball says sympathetically. 

“They would forget what they just taught me. And I was just a kid so when I said we already did that, I was just whining. I was lying. I think they just didn’t want me to know what I was doing to them. They were pretty good at hiding it. All of it. Anyway.” Constance pushes half a burger into her mouth. She tells them that her parents were killed by hunters five years ago, or that’s how Debbie interprets the garbled noises that came out of her mouth. 

“I wasn’t there,” Constance says, after washing her food down with a long sip of soda. Her tone suggests that she has come to terms with it, that their loss was inevitable. “They were young, right? Weak. And they thought I was their secret weapon. Thought I made ‘em invincible. When really, I made ‘em reckless. Arrogant. Stupid. Fuck ‘em.” 

“Is that really how you feel?” Debbie asks.   
Constance snaps her teeth at a fry. “Yup.”  
“So why are you still letting someone take advantage of you?”  
“It’s what you wanna do isn’t it?”  
Debbie is silent.

“You wanna use my skills for somethin’. You got big plans written all over y’ face.”  
“She’s got you there,” Nine Ball smirks.   
“Your parents wanted to exploit you so they could grow in power. Your boss is exploiting you to maintain it.” Debbie pauses to sip her drink, then, delicately, sets it down and clasps her fingers around it. “But I don’t need you for power. I have all the power I want and I will continue to grow in power regardless. What I want is to keep safe those that I love.”

Constance is slurping the last dregs of her drink through the straw. But her eyes are keen and fixed on Debbie.   
“I can give you a place to live, and anything else you want or need,” Debbie offers.   
“Silver.”  
Debbie smiles and nods affirmatively. “I can give you that as well.”  
“How much?”

Nine Ball is smirking when Debbie shares a look with her. Debbie looks back at the shrewd negotiator. “How about a hundred silver a week.”  
Constance hiccups. “That’s a lot.”

 

* * *

“You’ve been back five minutes and you’re already filling my house with strays.” Amita pours tea from a pot decorated with painted flowers into cups with golden rims and handles.   
“Pay no attention to her, Constance, she loves it,” Debbie says, accepting her cup as Amita serves them out.   
“It’s cool. Ah hot!” Constance shakes her hand and sets the cup of tea down carefully by the handle. She sits cross legged, in loose pyjamas and thick socks, on the sofa between Debbie and Asher. 

“She’s right. I do.” Amita’s smiles so cheerily her nose wrinkles and her eyes squint. “I’m not having you living in that den, wearing those rags.”  
“This is the fanciest shit I ever seen,” Constance says, holding up her tea, inspecting underneath the cup, and then, more cautiously this time, taking a sip. She is thoughtful for a moment and then nods. “Don’t hate it.”

“By the way, Debbie,” Asher says, rifling through some letters on the end table next to him. “This arrived for you.”  
“Me? Who knows I’m staying here?” Debbie takes the letter. One look at the perfectly penned calligraphy of the sender’s address tells Debbie all she needs to know. “Uh oh.” To a room of mixed expressions Debbie tears open the envelope and pulls out the letter inside. 

She unfolds it and reads, nodding. “Right.” She flips it outward to show the others. “Did you get one?”  
“Of course,” Amita says.   
“Yeah, but, does yours come with a personal note signed with a kiss?” Debbie points out the finely scribbled note at the bottom and the accompanying full red lipstick mark. Amita brings fingers to her mouth and begins chuckling as Debbie dictates the note. “Deborah, darling. You can’t avoid me forever. Kisses. Daphne.”

“Aww!” Amita teases. “That’s so sweet!”  
“She the one you need protectin’ from?” Constance asks, holding up her cup of tea with her little finger out because everyone else is holding their cups that way.   
Debbie holds the invitation on her lap and sighs.  
“If you’re going to take Tammy you better behave yourself this time,” Amita warns.   
“Tammy...” Debbie sighs again. She wants desperately to treat her to something like this. “Claude will be there.”

“Is _he_ the one you need protectin’ from?” Constance asks.   
“Potentially,” Debbie admits. “Maybe I should go to this on my own.”  
“You owe Tammy.” The way Amita places her cup of tea down on its saucer punctuates her point. “She deserves to get dressed up and have a fun night out at a fancy ball without being made to feel miserable.”

“I know,” Debbie says softly, tracing her finger down the edge of the invitation. She knows Amita overheard her conversation with Tammy, and that she wouldn’t be pushing to put her into a difficult situation if she wasn’t also willing to support her. 

“We should take her.” Lou has emerged from wherever she was hiding. It looks, in Debbie’s absence, like she has been shopping with Amita, because the outfit she is wearing has a particularly refined and reserved quality lacking in her usual style. The dark colours and faintly glittering textures of her trouser, blouse and coat ensemble lend her a maturity and mystique that Debbie was not expecting. 

“You should take her,” Lou qualifies, walking into the room. She spots Constance staring at her. “Who are you?”  
“Constance. You gotta be Lou.” She looks the woman up and down.   
Lou simply looks at Debbie for an explanation. She has to wait for Debbie to lead her through the house and into Lou’s bedroom.

Lou hovers by the bedpost, as if it might provide a place to hide when the time came. Debbie looks around the room, at the lack of decoration, the lack of clutter, but filled with the smell of various companions taken to bed. Debbie wonders if this is what keeps Lou quiet behind her, if this is why she leans against the post, pressing her nail into the grain. 

“I’m sorry.”  
Debbie just shakes her head at her. She know Lou is sorry for more than just their recent fight. “You have nothing to be sorry for. Nothing.”  
Lou scoffs quietly. She is looking at the bed. The bed is eagerly listing all her secrets.  
“I’m worried Tammy’s husband sent that hunter after us.”  
Lou nods.  
“I know you hate sending her home. I’m just trying to minimise risk.”  
Lou nods again.   
“Constance has a unique affinity for breaking wards. I want her to stay close to you, to us.” Lou is still quiet. Debbie approaches. “It’s no reflection on you.”  
“No. No, I get it. I’m not...I’m not opposed to it.”

There’s a cadence to Lou’s voice, as if she is not used to using it. Not in this way. Debbie steps close to her so she can see the silver gone from her eyes. She lifts her hand up to brush a feather light lock of her hair and Lou turns her head down and into her hand.   
“I was scared.” The words come out of her the way water leaks from a tap.   
“We both were.”

Lou’s eyes close and her head rolls away from her hand but returns needily. “No. Of who you’d be when you came back.”  
Debbie feels Lou’s cheek with the backs of her fingers.  
“Of whether or not you’d even...”

“You got me through it.” Debbie cups her face in her hands. Lou drags her bottom lip between her teeth. “You.” Debbie uses her hands to sweep the hair from Lou’s face, to see her, to hold her and to see her and to show her that she is about to kiss her. Their lips meet softly and linger. “You.” Their lips meet again. Debbie can feel the gentle moan in Lou’s throat vibrate through her mouth. She feels slender, nimble hands seek and find her hips. 

“Can we take Tammy...to that ball?” Lou asks her in those moments their mouths are not otherwise engaged.   
Debbie parts from her because the question is so earnest and too endearing and she needs to take a moment. “You’ll have to ask her.”  
Lou chews a reflexive smile. “Do we have to send her home after?”  
Debbie lets her hands travel to Lou’s shoulders. Lou’s jaw is tense, eyes sparkling like dust in the light, waiting for her answer.  
“You’ll have to ask her that as well.”


	9. Chapter 9

Debbie makes them park a block away. Lou’s hand is on the door the second the car rolls to a stop.  
“Wait.” Debbie touches her shoulder.  
Lou looks out the window. The sounds and smells bring tension to her muscles, waging an impossible war between action and patience. 

She can sense them. Sitting at the table. Tammy’s nails chink lightly against a glass. Her heart rate is steady. Lou can’t smell exposed blood. She can’t smell that he’s touched her in any way. She looks at Debbie and is frustrated that she can’t figure it out, that she can’t see why Debbie has told her to wait, that once again she fails to notice what is obvious to her. 

“What’s going on?” John asks, twisting behind the wheel.  
“Shh.” Debbie holds up her hand.

_“All of it.”_

Lou hears Tammy lift the glass from the table and drinks without hesitation or pause. Lou’s heart sinks. He doesn’t need to harm her. He is making her harm herself. She reaches for the door again and winces when Debbie reaches across for her arm to stop her. She knows Debbie wants to think of a strategy before charging in.

She needs to believe that Debbie’s hesitation is strategic. She needs to believe that it was not about keeping her from danger at the risk of Tammy’s life. She has to calm herself to think logically, knowing that rushing in would have made things worse, would have forced the hunter to adapt his strategy.

 _“Good girl.”_

Lou hates his voice. It drips and echoes like moisture in a cave. Debbie gives her a nod and Lou opens the door. As they walk past the front windows they can hear the hunter rise from the table. He knows they have arrived and he knows that there is nowhere he can hide from them. He needs to use the space to his advantage, and he calmly makes his way deeper into the home. 

They stand at the front door and Debbie gives Lou a nod so she knocks.  
“Answer the door. Invite them in.”  
They hear Tammy, too, rise from the table and make her way to the front door. When it opens Lou pains at the pleasant smile on her face and the terror in her eyes. She can see the corner of her mouth twitching as she fights to resist the suggestion to invite them in. 

“It’s okay, Tammy,” Lou tells her. She knows what it’s like. She knows what she’s experiencing. And her effort in resisting is admirable. Tammy is sweating, choking in the strain to keep her voice trapped in her throat but it’s only a matter of time. 

Debbie steps inside, because the ward for her is broken by Tammy’s previous invitation. She puts her hand on Tammy’s shoulder, lets it rub down her back encouragingly.  
“Let go, honey. It’ll be okay.” 

“C-c...c...” She stammers and her eyes roll back in her head as Debbie strokes her hair. Lou hates seeing her endure the agony for her, and is also impressed that she has been able to resist in this way. When Nine Ball used the same drug on her there was almost no strength in her to resist. But surrendering to Nine Ball was something she did willingly. There was no need to fight it. Tammy is fighting because she wants desperately to protect her. Lou yields because she knows Nine Ball would never, ever hurt her. 

“Come in.” For a brief moment, Tammy’s gentle features contort, and then the warm, welcoming smile returns to her face.  
Lou steps inside. Tammy’s eyes follow her, because all she can do is stand there waiting for her next order. Lou gently closes the door behind her while Debbie takes a few steps into the room, because she wants the hunter to engage her first. 

Lou feels the wards start weaving immediately, beginning with the stiffness, the weakness in her legs, the tightness in her chest and pounding in her head. But she is able to reach Tammy and cup her face, with every atom of her being impressing through her touch that none of this is her fault, that it will be okay. 

“It’s a good way to force us to confront you; poisoning her,” Debbie says, as Lou feels her eyes start to burn. She closes them and tries to rely on her other senses.  
“I will give her the antidote. When you’re dead.” The hunter’s voice falls like thick drool.  
“You don’t have it on you, do you?” Debbie says.  
“I’ve yet to brew it.”  
Debbie sighs through her teeth. “Well, that’s really inconvenient.”

Lou feels his next ward plunging her as though into water, filling her ears with a cacophony of formless sound that drowns everything else. Lou thinks she is falling, but she breathes in deeply through her nose and anchors herself to Tammy’s scent. She is vaguely aware that Debbie is fighting, and perhaps not doing too well. 

Lou tries to straighten up, turn towards the smell of the hunter. He is coming towards her, that much she knows. Then she can hear his breath, his heart, his footsteps. In the next moment she can see the blade. She catches his arm, making sure he has the time to realize that she can see, she can hear, and she can move, and that she is going to enjoy watching him die. 

Debbie clasps his head from behind. His neck snaps easily and he drops to the floor. Debbie clucks her tongue. “That was bracing.” She crouches down to search his pockets while Lou turns to Tammy. She is still smiling, still under the affects of the drug but there is overwhelming relief in her eyes. 

Debbie is going to the kitchen and returns with a glass of slightly bubbling water. She can’t order Tammy to drink it. The hunter’s voice is the only one she will obey.  
“Tilt her head back,” Debbie says.  
Lou cradles Tammy’s jaw with one hand and, taking a firm fist of her hair, urges her head back. Together they coordinate pouring the contents of the glass into Tammy’s mouth, clasping it shut and pinching her nose. 

For a while the lack of air doesn’t concern her. Then she moans and chokes as the contents of her mouth travel down her airway. Undeterred, Lou and Debbie hold her fast. Tammy’s natural reflexes kick in and she begins to swallow then cough and splutter as they release her. 

Debbie pats her on the back. “Welcome back.”  
Tammy is coughing and can’t speak but she tries to give a thumbs up before doubling over in the effort to catch her breath.  
The door suddenly bursts open and John almost tumbles inside, clinging to the doorknob.  
“Ah. Everything is fine, I see.” He awkwardly rights himself and smoothes out his coat sleeves.  
Constance peers around him. 

“He dead?” She is looking at the hunter.  
“Yep.” Lou holds Tammy close. “Good job.”  
“No probs.”  
“Do you remember what he gave you?” Debbie asks Tammy.  
“He made me fill a glass of water. Then he put something in his mouth and spat it into the glass,” Tammy says, nose wrinkling in disgust.

“Gross,” Constance says.  
“Anything else?” Debbie asks.  
“He, uh, poured something from this little vile into it as well.”  
“Can you remember what colour it was?”  
Tammy shakes her head critically. “It looked, blue...purple...”

“Okay. I don’t want you to panic. But we need to get you to Nine Ball’s.” She turns to John and Constance. “Back to the car. Now.”  
Tammy frowns at her. “You know, if you didn’t want me to panic, you shouldn’t have told me not to panic.”

 

* * *

Nine Ball’s private quarters are dimly lit, glowing in amber tones and filled with plants and charms and burning incense. She sits herself on the bed, sweeping a hand across Tammy’s brow. Tammy gives her a lopsided smile, because Nine Ball is smiling down at her.  
“Knew I’d get you into my bed eventually,” she winks at her.  
Tammy wheezes and blushes, twitching and shivering. 

Lou smiles too, despite the way her guts are churning. She is sitting cross legged on the other side of the bed, holding her hand. Tammy strains to pull the air into her lungs and Lou feels it drag across her heart, slicing it to ribbons.  
“Well, it’s slow acting,” Nine Ball says, feeling under Tammy’s jaw and her neck. “It’s affecting her nervous system. You said it was blue or purple?”  
“That’s what she said, yes.” Debbie stands at the foot of the bed, when she’s not pacing. It’s not as extravagant as the circular bed in the suite. No posts, no silks, just plain, soft sheets and a decorative throw.  
“It could be a number of things.”  
“But you can find out. You can mix something. Counteract it.”  
“That’s why you brought her to me isn’t it?”

Lou rubs her thumb across Tammy’s knuckles. She is thinking about the strength she showed fighting not to invite her in. She doesn’t want to forget that. She squeezes Tammy’s hand as if to hold onto the memory.  
“I shouldn’t have killed him. I should have made him tell me what kind of poison it was,” Debbie says, beginning to pace again, berating herself. 

“He would have lied. And you would have forgotten, anyway.” Nine Ball gets up from the bed and walks over to a table stocked with jars. “You did the right thing, Deb, bringing her here.” She selects a jar, twisting off the cap as she walks over to a pot beginning the broil on a stove. She looks over her shoulder. “You don’t have to be in here. Go wait at the bar.”

“I’m not leaving,” Lou says. Tammy is looking up at her, and Lou gives her a confident half smile.  
“Alright. But don’t get in my way.” Nine Ball walks back over to the bed and eases herself down gently. “How you feelin’, baby?”  
Tammy twitches. “...Cold.”  
“Yeah? Cause you sweatin’ buckets.” She starts pulling the sheets down. The moment her fingers reach for the buttons on Tammy’s blouse, Lou grabs her arm. 

“What I just say, bout gettin’ in my way?”  
“Lou,” Debbie urges.  
Lou lets her go. She trusts Nine Ball. But Tammy doesn’t yet. “Just...tell her what you’re doing,” Lou says.  
Nine Ball gives Lou an acknowledging nod. Lou releases her arm.  
“Tammy, I’m just going to check something on your chest...” Nine Ball releases two, three, four of the little buttons on her blouse and peels the sweat soaked fabric aside. The veins on her chest look drawn from bright red ink. 

Lou can’t help grimacing in horror.  
Tammy smirks and her voice croaks. “That bad, huh?”  
“Ignore Lou, Tammy. This is nothing I can’t handle. Okay?” She tenderly begins doing up her buttons again. Tammy looks up at her, shivering, but comforted. 

“Now,” Nine Ball says as she finishes her top button. She playfully strokes Tammy’s jaw with the back of her finger. “I’mma need to taste it. The poison in your blood.”  
Lou is about to protest but she stops herself. Nine Ball is speaking to Tammy as though there is no one else in the room, as though she is all that matters. Her tone is clear but gentle, authoritative but comforting.  
“I’ll be able to determine what was used to make the poison, and I’ll be able to mix something that’ll fix you right up.”

Tammy is smirking up at her, eyes gaunt, face white, lips pale. “Lucky you...”  
Nine Ball arches an eyebrow and nods. “Oh I been waitin’.” She leans over her, brushing the beads of sweat from her brow. “I been waitin’ t’ get my teeth stuck into you, girl, believe it.”  
Lou smiles at the sound of Tammy’s meek but smug laughter.  
“Knock...yourself out...”

“Now, baby.” Nine Ball traces the contours of Tammy’s face. The woman is quiet and enchanted. “I need to get a proper, uncontaminated taste. You gettin’ none of that good toxin stuff from me.”  
Tammy is silent as the information sinks in but Debbie is upset.  
“You’re saying this now?”

Nine Ball ignores her. “But I promise, I’ll be as gentle, an’ quick as possible.”  
Lou sees the anxiety creep across Tammy’s tired features. Tears well and spill from her eyes.  
“Baller. Leslie,” Debbie snaps when Nine Ball doesn’t acknowledge her. “Is that really necessary?”  
Nine Ball just holds up a finger. “This really don’t concern you.”  
But Tammy is smiling again, lashes wet and eyes glistening. “Is that...your name?...”

Nine Ball’s lips scrunch and pout irritably.  
“...It’s pretty,” Tammy croaks, smiling broadly.  
“Hmph,” Nine Ball says. She picks and gently brushes locks of matted hair on the pillow. “I oughta let this poison kill you. Can’t have you goin’ around tellin’ people my real name.”  
“I’m gonna tell....everyone...I know...” Tammy’s body twitches uncontrollably even as she is grinning. She hasn’t noticed that Nine Ball is sweeping her hair from her neck in preparation. 

“Everyone you know, huh?” Nine Ball nods, eyebrows up. “You gonna be a damn pain in my ass, aren’t you.” Slowly, she leans over her and stops inches from her face. Tammy’s breath hitches and her heart begins to race. She lifts her hand, slowly and deliberately, so that Tammy can see it coming, can see what she intends to do. Lou feels Tammy suddenly squeeze her hands, feels the bed sheets tug gently as her body squirms instinctually, because when Nine Ball’s hand clamps firmly over her mouth the woman knows why. 

“Relax for me, baby,” Nine Ball whispers. “Close your eyes.”  
Tammy frets but forces herself to obey. Lou clasps Tammy’s hand in hers and holds it up to kiss her fingers. Nine Ball’s thumb slips under Tammy’s chin and leverages her head to the side. She doesn’t make the woman anticipate for long. Lou watches her nuzzle into the crook of Tammy’s neck. The hand over her mouth does little to muffle the roar of pain. 

Usually the injection of toxin they release happens as they bite, and the gush of blood racing through the major artery spreads it quickly through the body. The pain dulls almost immediately. The heart slows. Muscles relax. Without it, Tammy’s heart continues to race, her every muscle tensing and clenching in an effort to escape, screams and sobs of agony bleed around Nine Ball’s hand because the pain is constant and grows more unbearable. 

Lou glances at Debbie. Her frame is steel and her eyes glint darkly in the dim light. It’s strange. There is something in Lou’s nature that is enjoying Tammy’s torment. She recognizes it in Debbie, can see the woman watching in fascination the way Nine Ball salaciously smothers Tammy’s every move to escape her.

Lou thinks Debbie is remembering what it’s like. To pin someone down and feed off them for the sheer pleasure of it. She looks at Nine Ball, watching the indulgent motion of her body on top of the woman, listening to her soft contented moans as she takes her fill. She realizes then that Tammy has gone quiet, her hand no longer gripping and tugging in hers. 

Nine Ball’s spine arches and she rises, licking her lips. Debbie steps forward.  
“Leslie-”  
“Relax. She won’t bleed out. I gave her a good dose as I finished.” She stands from the bed and heads to her work station. Debbie immediately takes her place on the bed. 

“Did you get what you needed?” Lou asks.  
“Shut up. I’m trying to remember and you don’t want me going back for seconds.”  
Lou listens to her work, selecting one jar of ingredients after another and adding them to the pot brewing on the stove. Tammy is exhausted, shivering but calm. Her face is pale and gleaming with sweat and tears. Lou thinks she might be asleep but then she hears her try to speak. Tammy swallows and licks her lips and tries again.

Her voice is raw. “Was it good...for you?”  
Nine Ball turns at the stove. She saunters back over to the bed. Flipping her hair over her shoulder, she leans across Debbie and gets close as she can to Tammy’s ear.  
“Baby, I ain’t had it that good in a loooong, long time.”  
Tammy grins and her laugh is deep before becoming a cough.  
Nine Ball winks at Debbie as she straightens back up and goes back to her work. 

An hour later the antidote is ready and Nine Ball is handing Debbie a small bell shaped bottle.  
“Are you sure this is gonna work?” Debbie asks. Lou is already helping Tammy to sit up, getting behind her to provide support.  
“Really? You just asked me that?”  
Debbie sighs and holds the rim of the bottle to Tammy’s lips. She begins to tilt it slowly, carefully. As she drinks, some of it trickles out the corner of her mouth and Lou uses a finger to wipe it away. 

“All works out in the end, huh?”  
Debbie is concentrating on helping Tammy to drink so she doesn’t turn to answer Nine Ball. “What’s that supposed to mean?”  
Nine Ball is tidying. “You know what it means. Anyway. You should let her rest.”

“No,” Tammy says, “I’m f...” Her head slumps and she falls slack in Lou’s arms.  
Nine Ball snorts. “Yeah, honey, I put a sleeping draught in there, too.”  
“What?” Debbie twists on the bed to face her. “Why?”

“Because,” Nine Ball says, “That poison ravaged her body. She’s fucking exhausted. And you two need to let her heal. I figured the only reason you’d leave was if she was sleeping.”  
Lou lays Tammy back down, carefully resting her head on the pillow and drawing the sheets over her. Debbie and Nine Ball are arguing. Lou ignores them, leaning over Tammy and kissing her cheek.  
“I’m never going to forget what you did for me today.”

But she’s lying. Because she can’t remember it. She can only remember telling herself what happened. She is sure, though, that the way she imagines it cannot be far from how it was. She shifts, laying beside her, letting a finger lightly touch her hair. 

“Lou...” Debbie says.  
“You knew this would happen.” Lou strokes the lock of Tammy’s hair.  
She hears Debbie hesitate and bite the inside of her cheek. “I prepared for it. Yes.”  
“...I got her into this. This is because of me. Because I chose her. ”

Debbie strides back to the side of the bed. “No. Lou. Her husband got her into this.”  
Lou watches Tammy sleeping, twitching occasionally as the antidote dissolves the poison in her system.  
“He forced her to go to the lounge that night. She was lucky you found her. Lucky you chose her.”  
“Claude chose her.”

“Hey.”  
Lou looks up at her.  
Debbie’s eyes are fierce and alight. “If you weren’t there, he and I would have used her up and discarded her like trash and never given her another thought. You know that.”

Lou looks back at the woman recovering beside her. She hears Debbie leave with Nine Ball. They weren’t going to be able to convince her to leave anyway. Lou plays with the damp lock of Tammy’s hair. She tries to remember, but knows what she recalls is merely her imagination. She hates that the wards have taken this piece of Tammy from her. She’s scared to think what else has been taken from her.


	10. Chapter 10

Tammy runs her fingers along the quilt on the bed. Her attention drifts to the dresser where crystalline bottles glint and sparkle in the light. Debbie watches her pick one of the perfumes and test it on her wrist. Her little noise of surprise and delight caresses her ears. The woman clutches the bottle cherishingly, and then sets it back in place. 

Debbie is so close she could touch her, but the mortal hasn’t noticed. Tammy takes a step back from the dresser and closer to Debbie, and only then turns to see the unexpected figure. The sharp gasp of fright and frantic hop backwards makes Debbie smirk. 

Tammy holds a fist over her heart, trying to catch her breath. She says nothing, because Debbie’s silence dismantles anything she thinks of to say. So Debbie steps closer to her, close enough that, even without touching, she knows Tammy feels her everywhere. 

“Are you going to do that often?” Tammy’s voice is quiet.  
“Regretting your choice already?”  
Tammy shakes her head and looks down. “No.”  
“No?” Debbie tilts her head. 

Tammy’s gaze rises to meet hers, but whatever action she would have taken beyond that appears to be hindered. Debbie sees that she, again, tries to make a move and is prevented. Debbie leans a little to her ear. “Something you’re afraid of?”  
Tammy releases a sound resembling a laugh. It has a brief, fleeting life in the space between them.  
“You.” Tammy nods nervously. “A little.”  
Debbie adjusts the shape of her mouth in surprise of the admission.  
“Asher seems so at ease with Amita and I...I’m still afraid of what you might do to me. What you could do to me.” She fidgets, all but taking a step back from her. “What you would like to do to me.”

“What do you think I would like to do to you?” Debbie asks scandalously.  
Tammy swallows and Debbie watches her throat muscles contract.  
She smirks. “What if I promised you’d enjoy it.”  
Tammy’s eyes are large and her voice lilts. “It’s not that. I’m not sure if...”

The smirk on Debbie’s face wavers. She reaches out and gently combs her nails through a lock of blonde hair.  
“Not sure if...?”  
Tammy releases a quick sigh. “Sometimes...I just want to do to you what you’re doing to me. Right now. This...touching.” She sucks in her lip and Debbie likes the way it flicks from her teeth.

Debbie withdraws her hand. “You think you can’t touch me?”  
Tammy smiles anxiously.  
Debbie takes a step towards her as Tammy shamefully takes a step back. “Because you might anger me?”  
Tammy knocks into the dresser and Debbie takes a perfectly measured step so that she is standing even closer than before.  
“Touch me.”

The uncertainty in Tammy’s doe eyes amuses her.  
“Touch me, Tammy.”  
Her arm lifts, tentative fingers reaching. She has not taken offence. She knows the stories Tammy has been raised on. She knows that there are those among her kind who indulge the most base desires and impulses of their nature. Ones she, too, has taken pleasure in for centuries, and a creature like Tammy, she could have terrorised for days, living off her screams before tearing her to pieces. She’s not wrong to be afraid of her.

The tips of Tammy’s fingers draw close to her face.  
“Touch me,” Debbie urges softly. She knows Tammy is overcoming a lifetime of not altogether unfounded social conditioning. Tammy whines and chuckles anxiously.  
“Don’t hurt me.”  
“I won’t.” 

“Promise.”  
Debbie smirks. Tammy’s hand trembles in front of her face. “I promise.”  
Her fingers brush lightly and briefly against the skin of her cheek. Tammy releases a breath. With greater confidence she brings her fingertips to rest on Debbie’s cheek and feels along her jaw.  
“See?” Debbie says. “Perfectly safe for you to touch me.”  
Tammy laughs and blushes. Debbie feels her hand draw away so she reaches up and holds it there against her face. 

“What if I kiss you?”  
“Try and find out.”  
She’s smiling, though Debbie knows she’s still anxious. She can hear it in her heart. Pounding hard. But she is leaning forward, lifting her other hand for symmetry so, holding her face, she can inch closer, gaze flitting between her eyes and her lips as though looking for any sign that she should not approach any closer. 

But there isn’t. And now they have been an inch apart for a long time. Debbie obligingly closes her eyes. She knows it makes her less threatening and after a moment Tammy is kissing her so softly. It takes Debbie every shred of willpower not to grab her and toss her onto the bed behind her. 

Tammy bounces back on her heels with a grin on her face.  
“There you go.” With a finger, Debbie tucks a lock of Tammy’s hair behind her ear. “Now you know. You can do anything you want to me and get away with it. Not even Lou can make that claim.”  
As she is caressing the edge of Tammy’s jaw she sighs, a great surge of want rises suddenly from somewhere deep. She inhales, thinking to get as much of the woman inside her, even if it’s just her scent, to sustain her a little longer. 

She is surprised to feel Tammy’s hand cup her cheek. Her hair tickles, feeling a hand rest also on her shoulder. Debbie stills, patiently letting Tammy build her confidence. The mortal’s eyes shift to the large bed in the middle of the room. “What would you do to me?”  
“Nothing you wouldn’t want me to do,” Debbie tells her.

She looks at Debbie, holding her shoulders and heart racing and all but saying the words, hoping that Debbie can read it somewhere on her face.  
“Do you want Lou here?” Debbie asks.  
Tammy smiles and nods and is already trembling.  
Debbie continues to hold Tammy’s gaze and doesn’t adjust the volume of her voice at all. “Lou, get in here.”

She is amused at the look of confusion on Tammy’s face. She leans forward. “She’s on her way.” It’s not until Debbie taps her own ear that Tammy remembers their superior hearing. She blushes hard because Lou isn’t the only one in the manor with exceptionally good hearing. Debbie smiles adoringly. “Don’t worry. Amita respects your privacy.”

The door opens. Debbie watches Tammy’s eyes come alight, hears the intake of her breath as Lou comes into the room and shuts the door behind her. She comes across the room to Debbie’s side, noting the way Tammy’s hands are on her shoulders, and picking up the trace scent of their tentative intimacy. 

Debbie shares a look with her, before Lou turns to face Tammy.  
“Are you sure?” Lou asks.  
Tammy slips her arms from Debbie, bringing her fingers to the top button of her blouse. But she’s trembling so much, and the button is so small.  
Lou smiles. “May I?” She holds up her hands. A sigh shudders over Tammy’s lower lip, as if she’s suddenly cold, but she nods. 

Lou takes her time unbuttoning the blouse, confirming each time by the look in Tammy’s eyes that she is comfortable with her to proceed. Debbie touches Tammy’s hip and steps around behind her. The woman is shaking as Debbie and Lou work together to undress her. 

Debbie kisses Tammy’s cheek, distracting her while Lou removes her pants, bringing them down her legs and encouraging her to step out of them. Needing something to hold on to, Tammy feels her hands into Lou’s hair, making fists when she feels fingers tug at the seam of her panties. Lou bites her lip, cringing a little and smirking at having her hair pulled. Debbie kneads Tammy’s breasts, whispering to her that she’s beautiful as Lou peels her panties down and rests her brow against her belly, inhaling deeply. 

There’s a little resistance as Lou pulls down, the damp fabric sticking between Tammy’s legs. Lou drops the panties aside and presses her palms flat against Tammy’s thighs, prying her open with her thumbs and giving her clit a gentle nudge with her tongue.  
“Haah!” Tammy’s whole body jerks, heels slipping to gain purchase because they are both too strong. Debbie holds her and hushes her.  
“Sensitive, hm?” She kisses her shoulder. “That’s okay. We’ll take it slow.”

They manoeuvre her to the bed, letting her sit and shuffle back, legs up and arms hugging around them. Tammy watches, transfixed as they calmly and casually undress in front of her. It’s a performance. A slow, silent ballet. Of course, Lou used to be urgent. Her lingering mortal perspective on the finite nature of life made her rush in the early days of their relationship. Now she is standing at the dresser, calmly and shamelessly removing each ring from her fingers, turning to Debbie and flexing them with a grin. 

Debbie rolls her eyes and swats her hand away. She wants to see her chest. Lou makes a face but obliges, and for a moment the smug look in her eyes turns to anxiety. Debbie touches the thin and fading silver scar. She touches, also, the long discoloured line running along the edge of her waist. She can see Lou is waiting for her verdict and she smiles at her. The argentum poisoning was gone. The scars would clear completely in a day or two, so long as she fed properly. 

They turn to see Tammy sitting on the bed hugging her knees. Lou leaves Debbie’s side. Tammy’s eyes go large and uncertain, because Lou is a stunning creature and is only more majestic when she’s about to fuck.  
“Lie back,” she says softly to her. Tammy obeys, keeping her anxious gaze on Lou. She doesn’t realize she’s covering herself with her arms until Lou tries to move them. 

Debbie joins them from the other side of the bed. Tammy is looking between them, breath hitching as they begin to touch her. Tammy’s chest rises and falls with uneven breath, every sensation new and therefore unnerving. Debbie can see that she’s unsure of herself, of what to do. It is endearing to her that Tammy should think she needs to do anything but bask in the pleasure they offer. She runs her fingers down the side of her face.  
“So beautiful...” 

Tammy is already flushed, mouth open, eyes frequently squeezing shut because Lou has slipped down her body and has focussed her attention between her legs. But at Debbie’s words she is overcome and begins to quietly sob and laugh. Debbie collects the tears that fall from her eyes with the back of her finger, hushing her. 

Tammy smiles at her, as Debbie’s hand travels down her neck, across her chest and over her breast. She closes her hand, trapping a nipple between her fingers and kneading firmly. She loves watching the sensations manifest in her face, loves discovering the locations on her body that correspond to the tense and twitch of specific facial features, to the pitch and texture of her moans and yelps.

Her hips buck off the bed and a grunt grinds up her throat, her hands suddenly clenching into the sheets.  
“Shhh...” Debbie runs her hand down her abdomen and presses down low on her belly. She shares a look with Lou whose lips form a sharp, smug edge. Three of her fingers push and pull slowly between Tammy’s legs. Debbie’s hand keeps Tammy’s hips anchored so that when she heaves and squirms, her legs peddle uselessly and her chest rises enticingly. 

She is grunting with each firm, measured thrust, tugging at the sheets, digging in her heels, trapped blissfully beneath Debbie’s hold. They know she’s close. They can hear it in her breath and in her blood. They also know how to keep her there. 

They know how to keep her squirming, writhing in pleasure, to completely and utterly flood her senses with nothing but the desperate burn of needing release and still denying it. So a long while later, when Debbie is massaging her fingers into the slick skin everywhere but where Tammy wants it most, flicking her tongue around a nipple before sucking it between her teeth, and Lou is kissing and teasing her neck so they can hear her every wince and whimper, smoothing the damp, matted hair from her brow with a firm hand, the pressure there contributing to Tammy’s overall sense of powerlessness and dependency, it would take very little to send her crashing over the edge. 

They want to watch her, watch it happen to her. Lou keeps thrusting and Debbie brings her fingers just close enough that the gentle stimulation makes Tammy cry out in shock. Debbie doesn’t relent, speaking soothing nothings to her as she tosses, convulses and sobs through it and when she’s done, they lay beside her, Debbie stroking her face and kissing her trembling lips, and Lou, still inside her, kissing her shoulder. 

She is still wincing, twitching, utterly drained but content. Debbie rests her hand over her breast and idly brushes over her nipple with her thumb. Tammy is looking at her and Debbie can see she’s on the verge of breaking. For a mortal she’s lived a long time to believe that the love she’s been shown is all love can be, that the way men have treated her is a romantic ideal, that the way her husband fucked her was the deepest expression of his feelings for her and not just about getting what he needed. For all of this to dawn on her at once is cruel.

Debbie brushes her cheek with the backs of her fingers. She wants to show her more. Let her explore. When she starts to tease Lou, Tammy watches. The sight of Lou beside her, perched precariously between agony and ecstasy, has her enthralled. The longer Debbie keeps Lou suspended, the more Tammy’s confidence grows. Debbie can see she wants to touch Lou, see it in the way her fingers flex and twitch, see in the way that she bites her lip. 

She gets Lou up on her knees and holds her from behind. She is strong enough to collect fingers from each hand into a single fist, effectively locking her arms behind her back. The position deliberately presents Lou to Tammy, and the mortal swallows at this sight of her, exposed, vulnerable. Debbie rakes her fingers through Lou’s hair before tightening her hand into a fist and tugging. Lou grunts. The angle of her neck gives Lou’s voice an even deeper register when she laughs, but Debbie is able to silence her with a quick yank on her hair. 

“It’s okay, Tammy,” Debbie says, the warmth in her voice making her hold of Lou appear gentle. “Touch her.”  
She keeps offering tender words of encouragement as Tammy gets up on her knees in front of Lou, looking her over for no other reason than she is there to be enjoyed by her. For a while Tammy listens to her needy whines, watching her tug, watching her try to see her and what she’s going to do to her, but Debbie keeps her head angled to the ceiling, and so her eyes, more often than not, are simply closed. 

When Tammy’s fingertips brush the swell of her breast Lou thrusts into her touch. Debbie smirks and she holds her more firmly. She is intrigued about what Tammy is drawn to in Lou. Because at first, and unsurprisingly, the faint silver scars receive most of her attention. Lou is still for this gentle, reverent contact. She may have forgotten almost all of what happened, and Debbie, too, can only recall pieces, like shards. But for Tammy it is probably all so clear and terribly whole, scenes she won’t even be able to forget as long as she lives. 

The hand, holding Lou’s side as if she imagines she will catch what she remembers spilling out, travels downward, cupped, as though to transfer what she collected to another location. Her hand tilts, fingers spreading and it pours into the bed between them. Then she slides her fingers in between her legs, both women gasping. 

Tammy is determined and Debbie notes the lines of focus on her brow, the intensity of her eyes, the way her whole arm moves for Lou who is open mouthed and desperate to grind against the pressure of her hand. Debbie forces her to keep still and simply accept what’s being given to her, not to deny Lou but to provide Tammy the unrestricted freedom to explore. 

The fingers of her free hand crawl carefully up Lou’s body, between her breasts and along her neck. They touch her chin and trace the edge of her lips. Debbie eases her grip and Lou is able to lower her head. Debbie thinks Tammy’s eyes have been dipped in stars. She kisses Lou so gently. When Lou begins to moan in increasingly rapid bursts Debbie feels the orgasm shake through her. Debbie lets them curl up together. Tammy’s body is warm and Lou wraps around her like vines. 

Debbie smiles to herself. She collects Tammy’s gown from the back of a chair and wraps herself in it, easing into the chair and spreading her legs. Her head drifts back as her fingers work.  
“Debbie?”  
“Mm?”  
“Are you okay?”

Debbie smiles. Her fingers don’t stop. “Mhm.”  
“There’s room for you...”  
Her smile breaks into a grin. “I’m okay.”  
For a while there is silence. In each breath Tammy takes Debbie can hear her anxiety mounting.  
“Let,” Tammy’s voice breaks and she has to start again. “Let me try...”

Debbie extends an arm out to her, the arm that is not still preoccupied. She hears Tammy untangle herself from Lou and pad across the floor to take her hand. Even with her eyes closed she knows Tammy is averting her gaze from watching her pleasure herself. But when she does open her eyes, the sight of her stokes the fire. 

She gives Tammy’s hand a tug, doing so until she has wordlessly directed her to watch and not to look away. Debbie continues to touch herself, watching Tammy watch her. Watching her eyes shimmer, watching her cheeks flush, watching her tremble because Debbie is not quiet and Tammy is getting aroused again.

Debbie grits her teeth and holds her breath as she comes. She sighs and rubs her thumb into Tammy’s palm. Tammy doesn’t dare look away, so she sees Debbie withdraw her fingers, slick and covered in her pleasure. Debbie regards her fingers and a thought occurs her to her. With enough force on her arm, Debbie brings Tammy to her knees. She releases her hand and cups her face, holding her wet fingers in front of her mouth. 

She doesn’t have to tell her to open. She simply waits for her to do so. Her mouth is hot. She runs her fingers ever so slowly back and forth along her tongue through her lips. Debbie tenderly strokes her hair, enjoying the sight and the sensation. When she withdraws her fingers she clasps Tammy’s whole face in her hands, brushing her thumbs along the soft skin under her eyes. 

Tammy smiles at her, and Debbie sees in her glittering eyes the hope that she has pleased her. Debbie comes to let her curl up between her feet, head resting against the edge of her knee while fingers play in her hair. 

“How did it happen?” Tammy asks.  
Debbie watches the clouds through the window, the sky still blue and bright. She has been waiting a long time for her to ask.  
“Do you remember?”  
Debbie arches an eyebrow. “Cheeky.”  
Tammy wets her suddenly dry lips and swallows. “I don’t mean to say...”

Debbie curls her finger in a lock of her hair. “I remember.”  
Tammy stays quiet.  
“I was married. I lived in this town with my husband. We were rich, comfortable, and madly in love. At least, I remember believing we were madly in love.”  
She feels Tammy’s hand reach up and hold her knee. Debbie smiles appreciatively.  
“The years passed. I was proving to be a rather large disappointment as a wife. Try as we might I could not fall pregnant.”

Debbie’s fingers feel through Tammy’s soft pale hair with considered gentleness.  
“I got older. At the time I felt that our disappointment, our heartbreak was shared. All around us, our friends, neighbours, welcoming children into their lives while our house remained...as full one day as it did the next.”

She hears Tammy sniff and she smiles, soothingly combing her hair.  
“Our fortune came from city development. My husband planned and oversaw a lot of the expansion of the city. He was keen to begin a new project and required a rather sizeable investment. He felt he would have more luck getting the amount he needed from outside of the mortal community. From those who had lived longer, had more time to accumulate wealth. So, during a party held annually by one of their most prominent figures, a man named Guillermo DeVita, my husband and I attended hoping we could convince him to lend almost a hundred thousand silver over the course of the project. We met with Guillermo. And that was when my husband...sold me to him.”

Tammy pulls away from Debbie’s fingers and looks up at her. “...What?”  
“There was never any project. My husband wanted to get rid of me but he wanted to get something for the life he wasted on me. I was an aging, barren woman. Good for little more than the blood flowing through my veins. Guillermo paid a thousand silver for me. That was actually a lot back then. I should feel flattered really. Anyway, my husband took it gladly. They even had a drink to celebrate the transaction. He watched Guillermo feed off me for the rest of the night. I remember everyone laughing. It’s the kind of thing that sticks with you.”

Tammy draws her knees up to her chest. It has not gone unnoticed that Debbie’s story in many ways parallels her own.  
“Did...Did he turn you? Guillermo?” she asks.  
“Not straight away. No. He kept me around for...just over twenty years.”  
Tammy shudders. “Where is he now?” The thought that such a monster could still be out there, understandably, frightens her. It frightens Debbie too.  
She shakes her head. “Dead. Maybe. I honestly don’t know.” She sees that Tammy needs an explanation, so she says, “It was decades before I was able to escape. He was much stronger than me. And just because I was no longer mortal did not mean he didn’t have use for me.”

Tammy bites her lips to keep her emotions under control and when she tries to use her voice it wavers and breaks. “I’m sorry...”  
Debbie pats her knee, inviting Tammy to rest against her again. She shuffles over, laying her head against the edge of the seat where Debbie can resume her affections in her hair.  
“I might have been just like him. And not that long ago. This...enlightenment. I’m still getting used to it, Tammy.”  
“I trust you.”  
“You shouldn’t.” Debbie strokes her hair. “But you can trust Lou. Amita, Nine Ball.”  
Tammy sits up, turning her head to look Debbie in the eye. “I trust you.”

She lets Tammy have her gown back so she can go to the bathroom and bathe. Lou sleeps, because the woman forgets that her energy is limited and directly related to her feeding habits which have always been terrible, an artefact left over, perhaps, from the lifestyle she had as a mortal. Debbie throws her clothes back on and heads out into the hall. 

“Come with me.” Amita grabs her hand and drags her down the hall.  
“Oh. Okay.”  
Debbie is all but flung into a large, extravagant bedroom. She stands on a massive exotic rug of green and pale gold patterns, beneath a prismatic chandelier. The bed stands on a risen platform, covered in fur throws and pillows neatly arranged. A collection of jewellery sparkles from inside a large glass cabinet. There’s a writing desk under the window. 

“Is this your bedroom? It’s nice.” Debbie turns a full rotation as Amita shuts the door and meets her in the middle of the room. “Why haven’t I ever been in here before?”  
“Because we aren’t fucking.”  
Debbie blinks. “Are we about to?”  
“Psh. You wish.”  
“You know, I’m just insulted you think I would even deny it.”

Amita folds her arms.  
Debbie pouts. “So if we aren’t gonna fuck...”  
“I didn’t want to say anything in front of Lou.”  
“She’s very rarely paying attention anyway...”  
“What does Daphne mean when she says you can’t avoid her forever?”

Debbie scrunches her lips. Amita narrows her eyes expectantly.  
“Well,” Debbie says cautiously. “I have been in exile for a while.”  
“You’ve been back long enough. Has she tried to contact you? Was she expecting you straight off the train?”  
“She was just being flirty. You know what she’s like.”  
“I do know what she’s like. And she wouldn’t bother leaving you personalised messages on your invitation if she didn’t have significant expectations. You owe her something. I bet this whole ball is just a way to get you to see her.”

“You got all that from a brief scribble and a lipstick mark?” Debbie is impressed.  
“What is she talking about?”  
“It’s nothing.”  
“It’s something.”  
“It’s really not.”

“But you admit that there’s an it.”  
“What?”  
“You said _it’s_ nothing, implying that there’s a something. Can’t have an _it_ be a nothing.”  
Debbie frowns. “I think I follow you.”  
“It happened before your exile, right? Did you see Daphne before you were arrested?”  
“No.”  
“Oh that’s a lie. I can tell when you’re lying.”

Debbie’s lips go thin in frustration. “Can you?”  
“Yes. You know how?”  
“How?”  
“Because almost everything you say is a lie.”  
“If everything I say is a lie then what is the point in telling you the truth?”

Amita just smirks. “So you admit that there’s something you’re not telling me.”  
Debbie chuckles bitterly. “Well, shit. Since when have you been so good at this? Did you take a course while I was gone?”  
“Spill it, Deb.”

Debbie shakes her head, smiling miserably. Amita’s stern features soften.  
“Tell me,” Amita says.  
Debbie keeps shaking her head. “No.”  
Suspicion and fury find purchase on Amita’s usually gentle features. “You cannot keep things from me. You expect me to be there to look after your girls? Protect them? Protect them from Claude Becker? From you? I need to know what you’re involved in.”

“It’s better that you don’t know.” Debbie’s voice has lost its edge. Amita hesitates, unused to the sound.  
“No. It’s not better. We didn’t know last time. Leslie and I had no idea you were going to be suddenly exiled. Lou was on her own. We couldn’t find her. After your exile was reported, we spent days looking. All of us. Asher. John. We even asked Claude to help.”

Debbie bites her lips.  
“He refused, by the way,” Amita says. “But he did say he hoped we’d find her. Dead, in a gutter somewhere.”  
Debbie hugs herself and looks down at the patterns on the rug, tracing them slowly with the toe of her shoe.  
“Well we did find her. Lying in the gutter. Not dead, but she certainly smelled that way. She was delirious. Hadn’t fed in days.”  
“Thanks for letting me know,” Debbie says quietly. 

“Oh, don’t even,” Amita snaps. “It’s not like the subject came up naturally. And it’s not exactly something we want to tell you if Lou’s around to hear it.”  
Debbie looks up at her. She struggles to speak with the rocks in her throat. “No. I wasn’t being...” She sighs. “I’m sorry she took it so hard.”  
“We all did,” Amita says softly. She takes a step closer. “It was really hard, Deb.”

“Yeah well,” Debbie shuffles her feet. “It was hard for me too.” She gives her a tragic smile. Amita’s shoulders slump in sympathy.  
“I heard you tell Tammy that she shouldn’t trust you.”  
“Occasionally I give good advice,” Debbie sniffs.  
“So why do you expect me to trust you now?”

Debbie looks at her and can only shrug.  
“I assume Daphne won’t tell me what’s going on either, if I asked at the ball.”  
“She’d say she was just being flirty.”  
Amita smiles thinly and nods.  
“You don’t have to trust me, Amita,” Debbie says. “But please don’t let this distract you.”  
Amita just huffs. “Remind me again how I got caught up in your shit?”

“Well, around six hundred years ago I needed a place to hide and you, foolishly, offered to let me hide here.”  
“Oh yeah.”  
“Thanks for that, by the way.”  
Amita just looks at her. “I regret it every day.”  
Debbie nods, eyebrows raised. “That’s fair.”  
Amita snorts and shakes her head.

Debbie looks around. “This really is a nice room.”  
“Thanks.”  
“I mean...” Debbie shrugs. “Since we’re in here...”  
“Alright. Out.”


	11. Chapter 11

They cross the grey marble floor, the tall dark brick walls amplifying the delicate minuet to which a few guests dance and sway. Debbie looks down from the balcony, watching Lou and Tammy. Lou is a dashing figure in her coat and tails, her hair pulled back, captivating a group of mortals with stories, tales, all of them as tall as she is, but they aren’t to know. They want to be told anything, the more terrible and ghastly the better, and Lou is all too keen to indulge them. 

Tammy is listening, nursing a glass of wine, and is unsure when it is safe to drink it for the way Lou is making her laugh. Nearby, the young woman, Constance, samples every offering on a table stacked with porcelain plates and silver dishes.  
“You would make me come to you.” Daphne Kluger leans slowly onto the banister, and then lightly touches her hair.  
“I wasn’t going to come at all.”  
There’s a soft gasp. A hand flourishes to her chest. “I’m hurt.”

“Not because I didn’t want to see you, dummy,” Debbie says.  
Daphne’s eyebrows rise. “Now I don’t know how to feel.”  
Debbie turns to her with a smirk and Daphne breaks into a grin. Then she is taken in a warm and not altogether unwanted hug.  
“Oh. I hate this.”  
Daphne hums and nuzzles her cheek. “I know.”

She lingers and Debbie lets her.  
“Are we huggin’ now? Brilliant!”  
Debbie feels another body bump her from behind, arms clasping around them.  
“Hello, Rose.”  
Rose has enveloped them. It is clear from the affect in her speech that she has her cheek mashed right into Debbie’s shoulder. “Hullo, Debbie.”  
“...You two done?”

They part from her, Rose clearing her throat and picking at her dress and hair, while Daphne eases back, still holding Debbie’s shoulders. “It’s good to see you.”  
Rose appears from behind and moves to Daphne’s side. The Duchess holds out an arm and the dressmaker fits perfectly against her hip. There’s a practiced quality to the way they move together, and an endearing balance between Daphne’s confident grace and Rose’s nervous vigilance. 

“I should have come to see you sooner,” Debbie says.  
“It’s alright. I know why you haven’t. But I just thought, fuck it. I miss you.” Daphne flicks her wrist.  
“I missed y’ too.” Rose pipes up. “But. We’d already seen each other that day. When y’ came to pay for Timmy’s dress.”  
Debbie smirks. “Tammy.”  
“Right.” Her eyes shut and her hand forms a fist as if she’s trying to cling to the correct information and properly store it. “Tammy.”

“Yes, Tammy,” Daphne is smirking now. “Tell me about her.”  
“She was a gift.” Debbie thinks the words but they don’t come out of her mouth. Claude’s hand flutters across her back and holds her opposite arm, pulling her into his body. He smiles down at her. “A welcome home gift.”

The warmth is gone from Daphne’s expression, her mask of stately politeness drawn back down over her features. “Mister Becker.”  
“Miss Kluger. Miss Weil. You both look beautiful this evening.”  
Daphne hums at his false charm. “We always look beautiful.”  
“Yes.” Rose turns her head as if to determine something about the Duchess. “Always beautiful.” She glances upwards at Claude challengingly, daring him to say more because she is ready to correct him.

“Of course,” Claude smiles. “As are you,” he says, once again looking down at Debbie, hugging her closer.  
“I’m breathless,” Debbie says, eyebrow arched.  
Claude chuckles and nods in a self deprecating manner. “Speaking of Tammy, I thought she would be with you.”  
“She’s with Lou,” Debbie says.

“You regifted her?”  
“We share her.”  
She’s surprised at how quickly his expression becomes hard. “You’re sharing her now?”  
Debbie feels her skin chill. She has to force her voice to stay even. “With Lou.”  
Claude pulls a little from her, adjusting his stance. “What happened to having one thing that was just yours.”

Debbie had been certain that she knew the nature of Claude’s game. But she had made a grievous mistake all those days ago. The hunter attack on Lou had left her shaken. She had not been thinking clearly. She had almost lost Lou and she didn’t want to see Tammy hurt as well. And so she had spoken without thinking. She’d forgotten, in that instant, to follow her plan. Now he had caught her out. 

Claude peers into her eyes. She can feel them piercing straight through her. “Who else will I sense on her?”  
Debbie swallows. “...Nine Ball.”  
Claude spits a laugh. “You let that witch-”  
“Tammy was poisoned. She needed to taste-”  
“She’s a disgrace. I can’t believe you even associate with her.”  
“Believe me. It was the last thing I wanted,” Debbie insists forcefully.  
“Uh, excuse me,” Rose says. “Leslie is a very nice girl.”

Claude ignores her, taking a calming breath and rests his hands on her shoulders. “I’m going to the council chamber.”  
Debbie stiffens her jaw as he brushes loose strands of her hair tenderly back in place.  
“Bring Tammy there. We will finally share her together.”

“You know there’s no feeding allowed here, Mister Becker,” Daphne says.  
Claude lets his hands slip from Debbie’s shoulders and turns, taking slow steps towards her. She keeps her gaze on him and doesn’t flinch when he takes her chin firmly between his thumb and finger. With a slight but sharp motion he tilts her head back so he can leer down at her. “You’ll make an exception for me, though. Won’t you, Duchess.” 

Rose snatches his wrist, thrusting it upwards as she steps between them, eyes narrow, like a storm gathering on the horizon. Claude scoffs, but when he tries to move his arm it is not as easy as he expects. With a frown he yanks from her grip but she holds him fast. He leans to the side and clears his throat. “Tell your little dressmaker to release me.”

Daphne glares defiantly and her refusal to speak is the tacit approval of Rose’s continued interference. But Debbie is concerned.  
“Rose.”  
“You’re a disgusting man, Mister Claude Becker,” Rose says, her voice perfectly measured. “Now, I’m not sure what it is that you think gives you the right to make demands of my Daphne,” she gives a sideways nod of her head, “But nothing, absolutely nothing gives you the right to touch her.”

Claude is still. His lips tighten in a stiff line.  
“Are we clear?” Rose asks him.  
“There’s a lot worse I can do to _your_ Daphne than touch her,...little dressmaker.”  
Rose draws in a slow breath, chest rising, cheeks puffing. A light flickers in them, like lightning behind clouds.  
“Rose,” Debbie says, louder.  
Daphne places a hand on the back of Rose’s shoulder. Debbie can see, beyond the dignified elevation to her jaw, she is shaken by what Claude has said. At her touch Rose releases him. She turns to Daphne, taking her cheek, drawing her thumb by the edge of her chin, as though he might have damaged her when he handled it. She continues to inspect her, the way she might check for a fallen stitch or missing pin.

“I can kill ‘im, y’ know.” Rose is still fussing. “Few years in exile. Fair price t’ pay.”  
“It’s nice to know you think I have some value, at least,” Claude says charmingly, adjusting his cuff.  
Rose is about to turn on him again but Daphne quickly cups her cheek and urges her to stay focussed on her.  
“Go to the chamber then,” Debbie says. She thinks that it will be easier to collect her thoughts once he is out of her sight. “I’ll meet you there.”  
“Don’t forget Tammy.” He gives the three of them a short bow and leaves. 

“I don’t like this, Debbie Ocean.” Rose is satisfied that Daphne is fine. Now she leers at Debbie. “The three o’ you got something bad goin’ on. I’m not askin’ to be a part of it. Frankly, I don’t wanna know. But he touches her again an’ I’ll kill him and then you.”  
Debbie just smiles fondly. “And what will Daphne do without you, hm?”  
The ferociousness blinks from her face. “Well. She’ll jus’ ‘ave t’ wait for me I suppose.”

“Exile is rough.”  
She frowns. “Y’ don’t think I can handle it?”  
“I don’t think _I_ could handle it,” Daphne says. Her hands clasp around Rose’s.  
“...Suppose I would get really, really bored, lyin’ in a box day in, day out...” She quirks her lips. 

Debbie looks down over the balcony. Lou has coaxed Tammy to the dance floor. If she ever doubted Tammy was in love, she doubts no longer. The woman is utterly captivated, the smile on her face there without her being aware of it and Debbie aches that she will remove it. She feels a touch on her arm. 

“When Lou smells him on her...” Debbie swallows to keep a sob contained.  
Daphne is silent. But Debbie knows what she would say if they could not risk being overheard.  
“You can bring Tammy to my room. She can rest there.”  
“I should never have involved her. I thought I could outsmart him but...I’d just come out of exile. I wasn’t thinking...”  
The comforting hand on her arm presses, imparting what Daphne can’t say. Debbie reaches up and pats it. Daphne leans in and softly kisses her cheek before slipping away.

The strings weave a slow gentle waltz around the dancing guests. Debbie watches Lou holding Tammy in her arms, moving her with such firm, fluid motions that even the inexperienced housewife is afforded an elegance she might not otherwise have. Tammy is biting her lip in concentration, but even her missteps are compensated for by Lou’s grace. 

“You’re very good at this. Too good,” Tammy says.  
“I used to be a dancer.”  
Debbie can hear the small gasp of delight Tammy takes at this revelation.  
“I used to give lessons.”  
Tammy’s eyes are shimmering in admiration and Lou is basking in it.  
“My husband would sometimes take me dancing. Not often. I never learned and...I think I embarrassed him.”

“I would never know.” Lou smiles.  
Tammy giggles. “You’re just being charming.”  
“You’re actually teaching me some new moves.”  
“Stop!” Tammy laughs. Her hand swats half-heartedly at her chest. “Those aren’t moves. They’re errors.”

“Creative interpretations,” Lou insists.  
Tammy pouts, blushing appreciatively. Debbie shuts her eyes reflexively, because seeing her so happy in this moment is painful.  
“Daphne!” Lou’s voice of surprise compels Debbie’s eyes to open again. She peers through the crowd to see that Daphne has made her way to the couple and Lou’s earlier poise crumples. “Sorry. Duchess.” She gives a short but slow, reverent bow from the waist. Tammy positions herself half behind Lou, the woman’s behaviour making her nervous. 

Lou is looking around, jaw stiff at the looks she is receiving from mortals and her kind alike. Tammy is alarmed at the change. To her, Lou has always been confident, self assured, suave. But she has only seen Lou among the very few people around which she can get away with behaving that way. 

“Forgive me-” Lou starts, her voice low and stricken. Daphne waves a hand and brings it back as if she has snatched the words out of her mouth.  
“A dance then.” The proposition comes in the form of penance. An opportunity for Lou to make up for her discourteous manner. Lou feels Tammy behind her, directing Daphne’s gaze to the shy woman. 

“You don’t mind, do you?”  
Tammy stammers, looking from Daphne’s beaming smile to Lou’s rigid jaw. Debbie realizes then that she perhaps should have taught Tammy proper etiquette before the ball. She is able to slip up behind her and feels Tammy jump in fright.  
“Of course, Duchess, she doesn’t mind,” Debbie speaks for her, beginning to lead Tammy aside.  
“Good.” Daphne positions herself in front of Lou, taking her hand and placing her own on Lou’s shoulder. “Shall we?”

Lou’s entire focus is on Daphne, as if she has forgotten everyone else in the room. There is not so much as a furtive glance in their direction as she moves Daphne into motions of dance. When Tammy recovers she turns to face Debbie.  
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to say. Thanks for coming to my rescue.”  
Debbie just hums because she did no such thing.  
“I thought...isn’t the Duchess a friend of yours?”  
Debbie’s lips are tightly pursed. So she nods.  
“Why was Lou so...”  
Debbie can’t explain things to her right now. She puts a hand against the small of her back. “Come with me.”

Tammy goes with her. She does not even question and Debbie grits her teeth. She told the woman not to trust her. They walk slowly down a hallway off the second floor, away from the music.  
“I never ever dreamed I would see inside a place like this,” Tammy says. She is glancing all around, even though there is sparse to see in the short stretch of dark stone and carpet. “It’s incredible.”

Debbie remains silent. She can sense Tammy’s eyes on her.  
“Where are we going?” There’s a pitch of anxiety to her voice.  
Debbie continues to walk towards the end of the hallway. She takes slow, precise steps.  
“Debbie?”  
Debbie stops and turns to face her. Tammy smiles, glancing towards the door at the end of the hallway and then back at Debbie.

“I need you to do something for me,” Debbie says.  
Tammy swallows. Debbie can hear her heart pounding with anxiety, but there’s a determined smile on the woman’s face as if she can convince her she’s not at all worried. “What is it?”  
“I need you to let Claude taste you.”

Debbie watches the colour drain from her face. The tears well in her eyes.  
“He wants us, him and me, to share you.”  
Tammy’s lip is quivering. Her head tilts and she cringes. She needs moments to compose herself before she can get out the words and they still come out in a strained whisper. “Is...Is that all he wants?” She gasps and is overcome at the thought of other things the man might want to do to her and she quickly bites her lip and looks desperately at Debbie for confirmation.

“He wants me to know he owns me. But from you? Yes. That’s all he wants.” Debbie brushes her fingers around Tammy’s ear and keeps her fingertips under the edge of her jaw, brushing her thumb soothingly across her cheekbone.  
Tammy’s hands reach up and out towards the neckline of Debbie’s dress, where her fingers can find purchase, scrunching into the fabric. “You’ll be with me?” Her breath is becoming unstable. A tear trickles down her cheek. “He wants to share...that means you’ll be with me...”

Debbie sighs, bringing both hands to cradle Tammy’s face, tilting it down so she can kiss her brow and then rest her own against it. “The whole time.”  
Tammy sniffs shakily. Debbie reaches down her body, pressing once again into the small of her back and urging her towards the door. 

She expects and is not surprised by the resistance. But Tammy breathes in deeply, sharply, and tries to compose herself. The council chamber is a modest room with a large window overlooking the courtyard and much of the city. Lights from the town twinkle in the dark. 

Claude stands behind the table. He smiles warmly at their arrival. Whatever confidence Tammy had been able to muster dissipates once she crosses the threshold. She tries to back out of the room but Debbie, as gently as she can, forces her into the room. 

Claude walks out from behind the table, inhaling through his nose and humming in relish. He comes to stand in front of Tammy as Debbie shuts and locks the door.  
“Listen to that heartbeat. So afraid.” The pseudo affection in his voice tastes sick in Debbie’s mouth.  
Tammy's eyes shimmer and her lip still quivers. She doesn’t want to provoke him. Because all he wants to do is taste her, but if she forgets her manners he has grounds to do worse.

Debbie gently takes a hold of her shoulders from behind and presses her body into her back. She feels that her presence calms her, but only a little.  
“Look at those eyes. Mmf. Such a shame about these new laws. Debbie and I could have had a lot of fun with you.” He touches her cheek with the backs of his fingers. Debbie feels her whole body shudder. 

“Who says I don’t?” Debbie says, eyebrow raised.  
Claude sniffs and grins. “My. She finally fucked you. Did you enjoy it, Tammy?”  
Tammy swallows. She is trying to back away even now, heels pushing and scuffing against the floor as Debbie holds her. She squeezes her shoulders and prompts her softly. “Answer him, Tammy.”  
A tear falls in response. 

Debbie gently pats a shoulder. She is concerned because he will consider failing to answer him a faux pas.  
“...Yes.” Tammy says it quickly. It sounds more like a quick breath.  
“I certainly enjoy it.” His gaze flicks to Debbie.  
She keeps her expression trained. It convinces him that she is amused. 

“I do love the way you’ve done your hair,” Claude says to Tammy. His fingers move down her cheek to her neck. “So inviting.”  
Debbie has to adjust her hold because Tammy’s knees buckle in her effort to try and back from his touch. Claude smiles, taking a step back, and another until he is half sitting, half leaning back against the table. 

“Come here, Tammy.”  
She doesn’t dare defy him. She slips from Debbie’s hands, taking each step as though she might fall from a dizzying height until she stands before Claude. He runs a finger under her jaw.  
“Obedient little mortal, aren’t you.” He dips his head forward. “You would have made a good little pet.” 

He is being sincere with her, and she needs to acknowledge his compliment. Debbie hopes she knows that.  
It sputters awkwardly on her breath as more tears trickle down her face. “Th-thank you.”  
Claude smiles at her and then draws her into him, taking her shoulders and turning her around. His hands begin to explore her, one feeling around her throat, the other, deliberately, as his eyes fix on Debbie, moves over her breast, lingering indulgently before grazing down her stomach. He breathes her in when she makes a small whimper, his hand now flat against her groin, a thumb gently rubbing. 

She attempts to twist but her mortal strength is nothing to him. So he hushes her and tells her she’s being a good girl, that they’re going to have a good time, and that he’s been looking forward to sticking his teeth into her. 

“You coming, Deb?”  
Debbie approaches. Tammy lifts a trembling hand to reach for her and Debbie takes it. She holds her gaze as she brings it to her lips and kisses her fingers.  
“No toxin,” Claude says.  
Debbie looks at him. Tammy has taken in and holds a breath.  
“I want to feel her squirm between us.”

Tammy is ghostly white. “Debbie...!” She is trying to clamour for her, but Claude takes the hand she tries to extend to Debbie and chuckles.  
“Oh, she’s come alive now,” he says, pulling her arm down behind her back.  
Debbie is composed. “She’ll be too loud.”  
“Then you’ll have to keep her quiet.”

“Please...” Lines of tears glint wetly on Tammy’s cheeks. Her large dark eyes swim desperately. Nine Ball had been gentle and brief, but Tammy still suffered terrible pain. “Please...Debbie, please...!”  
“Place your hand over her mouth.”  
“N..no..!” Tammy recoils when she sees Debbie’s hand come up, trying to turn her head away from it. She is still begging, more and more frantic the closer Debbie gets and when her palm finally smothers her pleas she utters a long moan of defeat and begins to sob. 

“If I taste any toxin in her blood before I’m done, I’ll kill her.”  
Tammy’s whimpering ceases suddenly. She has always known. Debbie has warned her. But now she’s heard him threaten to kill her and she was still not prepared for it. 

“A few thousand silver for the death of an unimportant mortal. Fair price to pay,” he smirks at her. “Now bite her.”  
She is still holding Tammy’s hand in hers. She weaves their fingers together, hoping it’s enough to give her some comfort. Tammy’s racing heart is pounding in Debbie’s skull. When her teeth pierce barely healed tissue, hot blood floods her mouth. 

Tammy screams against her palm, kicking, scuffing her heels, twisting and jerking her body. But her efforts are as nothing to their combined strength. When Claude tugs her head back and bites down savagely on her neck, Debbie feels Tammy’s whole body jolt as though struck through by a brutal volt of electricity and Debbie moans. Hungrily, she drives her body into her, Claude pressing back and Tammy is crushed between them. 

She struggles still, arms and legs moving as though to reach the surface of a cold pool, too deep and too thick. The taste of her uncontaminated blood is exquisite. Debbie feels Claude’s hand on the back of her hair, encouraging her to drink deeply and savour the heat and the texture. They drink to the muffled music Tammy’s agony provides, meeting her instinctual struggles in a slow dance. 

But it can’t last. If they go on a moment longer, she will die. Debbie tastes it before she feels the woman go limp, go quiet. She straightens, watching Claude finish injecting her. He licks the wounds on her neck, and breathes out against her ear. 

He’s almost gentle with her, knowing she can still sense him, still feel him, so he strokes her cheek. “Thank you, Tammy. Perhaps next time we can do this at my place, hm?” There’s a sweetness to his smile. Carefully he lifts and cradles her into Debbie’s arms. He picks up and settles her limp arms across her body and once again, tenderly cups her face. 

Then he turns and walks towards the door. Debbie turns as he unlocks it.  
“You’re welcome,” he says to her. She knows he means it. He pulls open the door and disappears.  
Debbie is drawn to the marks on Tammy’s neck. Still open. Still wet. But not flowing, thanks to the toxin. 

“I know Claude has said it already,” she says to her. “But thank you.”  
Tammy’s winces, willing her body to move. It’s slow, and Debbie knows it’s hard, so she waits patiently. Fingers extend from the hand tucked into her body. Debbie feels them scratch lightly against the fabric of her dress and she swallows a rock in her throat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been a long time coming. I got overwhelmed with uni and, to a larger extent, personal matters. Shit got rough. But every comment and kudos I received between my last post and now has been truly treasured and appreciated and were really some of the few times I actually felt joy during that time. I'm really sorry it's been so long.


	12. Chapter 12

“You can always petition t’ have his status revoked.”  
“I barely got those mortal protection laws passed. And he still hasn’t violated any of them.”  
“So?”  
“So? On what grounds should his status be revoked?”  
“Uh, he’s a bastard.”

From the bed Tammy watches the two women talking. They sit at a small round table by a closed dark blue curtain. She recognises the Duchess, and eventually places the wild haired woman at the dress shop she visited the day after meeting Debbie and Lou. 

“I think they’re going to need more than that.”  
“Right...How about, he’s a fuckin’ bastard.”  
The Duchess shakes her head. Tammy can see the broad smile on her pretty face.   
“She’s awake by the way.”  
Tammy sucks in a breath, curling anxiously under the covers. The woman from the dress shop has nodded in her direction and Daphne Kluger turns her head towards the bed. The way she rises from the chair is breathtaking. 

“It’s okay, Tammy.” She walks to the bed and peers down at her. Her gown from the ball has been replaced by a beautifully embroidered silk and cotton robe. Her hair is let down, and her makeup removed, though her features are so naturally vibrant they need little to emphasise them. “Come and have some tea.” She waves her to come out of the bed. “You’ll feel better. Come on.”

Tammy slowly pushes back the bed sheets. She looks down to find that her own dress has been removed as well. She is wearing, instead, a simple long nightgown. It feels soft and warm against her skin, but she still chills against the air. She wonders, she hopes, it was Debbie who undressed her. 

Daphne frowns. “Oh!” She moves swiftly across the room and opens a wardrobe. She returns to Tammy holding out another lavishly stitched and embroidered robe. “Here.”   
Tammy slips her arms into it and Daphne reaches around her from behind, tying the cord and then holding her arms just below her shoulders. 

Tammy tenses.  
“It’s alright. You don’t have to worry about proper protocol here,” Daphne says. “Just relax. Make yourself at home.” One of her hands slips down her back and she urges her towards the table. Tammy is stunned when the Duchess pulls a chair out for her and bids her to sit.

Daphne makes a face, pouting like a child. “Please sit. I rarely get to do this. Be normal.”  
“Sit, dear,” Rose says.   
Tammy sits down and Daphne happily tucks the chair in under her as she does.   
“Tea?” Daphne is already setting her a cup and saucer as she asks.   
“Y-” Tammy has to cough and clear her dry throat. “Yes. Please.” She coughs again. Her head is pounding. 

The aroma of the tea fills her senses as it pours from the pot. Daphne sets it back down and then takes her seat again. She crosses her legs, clasps her hands together and sets them on the table and waits, watching Tammy intently with large eager eyes. 

Tammy realizes she’s waiting for her to try the tea so she reaches for it and lifts it up to her lips. It’s not too hot when she sips it. It tastes sweet and crisp and rich. She sighs and takes another sip, clutching it in both hands.   
Daphne grins. “See?”  
Tammy just holds her cup in her hands. “...Where’s Debbie?”

“Ball’s over. Everyone’s gone home,” Rose reports. Tammy looks at her, her heart suddenly tight and heavy in her chest.   
“They left without me?” Tammy swallows hard. 

“Amita thought it might be better for you to spend the night here,” Daphne offers, by way of assuring her she hasn’t been abandoned.   
Tammy’s voice still croaks, her throat damaged from screaming. “Why?”  
“Didn’t want you t’ have t’ witness the three o’ them arguin’, I expect.” Rose sips from her tea. She sounds bitter and disgusted. 

Tammy thinks about recent events. Dancing with Lou. Being with Debbie. Her eyes drift shut. An involuntary shudder seizes her body and she almost spills her tea. She sets it down to be safe. It makes sense, she thinks, that Amita would be angry. Lou was supposed to stay with her all night. Supposed to keep her away from Debbie. She frowns and leers at Daphne. 

“You distracted her.”  
Daphne blinks.   
“Lou. You distracted her so Debbie could...”  
The Duchess takes her hands off the table and places them in her lap.   
“Did you plan that? You and Claude?”  
Daphne’s eyes immediately go larger. “No! No.”

Tammy continues to leer at her, shaking now with adrenalin. She is surprised at how deeply she feels this rage, but when she tries to direct it at Debbie, it billows around an impenetrable force.   
“Do you trust Debbie?” Daphne looks up.   
Tammy scoffs. “Debbie told me not to trust her.”  
“But you do anyway.”  
“I’m not sure if I trust her or if I’m just afraid of her...”

Daphne grimaces.   
Rose sips her tea as though to keep from commenting.   
“What...exactly...has she told you about why she was exiled?” Daphne asks.  
“Only that she did it. That she deserved it. Rose told me it was Claude’s fault,” Tammy says, gesturing to the dressmaker. 

Daphne gives her an incredulous look.   
Rose sits upright. “Surely I’m allowed to tell ‘er that much?”  
“I don’t know _what_ she did, though,” Tammy says.   
“It was kept from the papers,” Daphne says. “It...It was considered too...”  
“Frightening. Horrendous.” Rose is about to suggest another word but Daphne shoots her a glare. 

Satisfied Rose will keep quiet, she looks back at Tammy. “It was thought it would cause a panic amongst mortals if they knew what had happened. The idea of it....was too much.”  
Tammy tenses her jaw and swallows hard again. “Are you going to tell me what she did?”  
Daphne seems caught off guard. She deflates shamefully in her chair. “No.”  
“Then why are we talking about it?” Tammy grumbles. 

“I just wanted to get a sense of your faith in her. Knowing she did this truly terrible, unspeakable thing. Are you even mad about what she just did to you?”  
Tammy’s lips part. She feels as though her heart is twisting in her chest. “I’m trying to be.” She feels, from their eyes, that they are pitying her. 

“I was surprised to learn about you from Rose,” Daphne goes on. “Debbie told me once that she has never taken a mortal companion.”  
Tammy feels echoes of Debbie’s touch all over her body.  
“She always insisted they were too much work.” The look in Daphne’s eye changes, and Tammy realizes she is looking at her in quiet awe. When the Duchess speaks next, Tammy understands that she iss looking at the exception. “Too fragile...”

 

* * *

Fifteen years ago, Lou threw a punch, and Debbie caught it. This time Debbie lets it connect and Lou feels her knuckles glance off her jaw.  
“Agh!” Lou growls and clutches her hand, doubling over.   
“Feel bet-”  
Debbie goes crashing to the floor. Lou gasps and darts back quickly into a corner. Amita nurses her fist. 

“Much better,” she says. She turns on her heel. On her way out of the lounge she takes Asher’s arm and leads him down the hallway.  
Debbie groans as she rises to her knees. Lou shivers. She’s never once seen Debbie go down so hard. Never seen her taken by surprise.

She can only stare. Debbie flexes her jaw and hunches, her hair falling around her face like a dark cloak. Lou cannot move, uncertain that this can really be Debbie spitting blood onto the floor, gasping and wincing, her movements slow and laboured. 

When Debbie finally, shakily, gets to her feet, Lou straightens as well. She cradles her shattered fist in her other arm, holding it to her chest. She glances to the hallway entrance, black in shadow, shuddering at the display of strength she’d just witnessed. She tries to reconcile it with the woman she knows as Amita. Doing so frightens her. 

Debbie seems to sense her confusion, her distress. She dabs at the corner of her lips, checking for blood. “Think I got out of that one pretty light.”  
Lou just blinks. She is realizing, even still, that there is so much she doesn’t know. So much she, stupidly, never thinks to learn. She feels suddenly foolish and so, so small. 

“You deserved it,” she says, and takes a quick, unconscious step back, but she is already flush against the corner of the foyer.  
“Mm.” Debbie wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, inspects it, and then wipes it on her dress. “Your hand okay?”  
Lou turns at the waist, shielding her injury from her, and frowns.   
“There might be some preserved blood in the kitchen. Take it and your bones should knit together overnight.”

“Stop,” Lou says.  
“Stop?”  
“Stop...acting like my feelings don’t even register to you. Like it means nothing that I’m mad at you. I’m furious with you! You realize that, right? Is that not coming across?” As the last word leaves her mouth she tries to take another step back.

Debbie stares at her. She tests her jaw again, touching it lightly with her fingers, then regards Lou once more. “The punches were a clue.”  
Lou growls in frustration. Debbie simply stares back at her, waiting, patiently, as if there has been nothing yet to warrant a reaction. 

“How could you do it?” Lou feels her knuckles starting to burn as though she has them pressed to a hot iron. She hisses and catches her breath again. “How could you let Claude...”  
“There’s a subtle but important distinction between permission and compliance,” Debbie says calmly.   
“I would die before I let him touch her.”  
“Then you’d be dead and he’d be free to touch her all he likes.”

Lou grinds her teeth.  
“You think everything is either good or bad,” Debbie says. “There’s either a right choice or a wrong choice. I wish things were that simple, Lou, I really do.”  
“They are that simple. You’re just trying to justify your actions.” Lou realizes she’s trembling and if she thinks on why she may not be able to hold herself up. 

“We all rationalize our actions.” Debbie’s responses are quick. Too quick for Lou. The woman is still staring back at her with dark, glinting eyes. She seems entirely too far away and too close.   
“If Claude wants me gone that badly just let him kill me,” Lou says. It doesn’t even surprise her that her voice never wavers, even in the slightest. It’s as if they are the words to a comforting song or poem, recited in moments of anguish, torment or despair. 

“And what would that achieve? You think that will stop him. You think he has no other cards to play against me?”   
“Oh face it Deb. I’m the only reason you’re here. You think that without you I don’t stand a chance.” She extends her good arm towards the front door. “That everyone will leap on me the first chance they get and you’re the _only_ thing keeping the wolves at bay. You have no other reason to be here and I can’t take it anymore. It’s too much pressure.” 

The energy she would have used to lift her voice is consumed grounding her stance. She brings her arm back, cradling her wound. “I hate knowing I hold you back. I feel like I’m trying, desperately, to keep something terrible contained but my hands are shaking and I’m losing my grip and if I drop my concentration, if I give myself a moment’s reprieve, a moment’s respite it will burst free and turn everything to ruin.”

A tear falls heavily from her eye. “I’m exhausted. I can’t do it anymore. You know, when you were in exile...it was actually kind of a relief knowing you were contained somewhere.”  
Debbie’s eyes glint at her from an inexplicable shadow. She nods slowly, lips forming a thin line of resignation. “Ah. I get it now. Tammy is a buffer.”

Lou frowns.   
Debbie begins to take steps towards her. “I wondered how and why it was that you fell so hard for her. It was because you didn’t want to deal with me. She’s so easy, and gentle, and unthreatening.”  
“That’s not-”  
“It’s okay Lou.” Debbie smiles. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe things are simple. Claude has only ever wanted one thing and I refused to give it to him. I was being selfish, and you were the one paying the price.”

“I don-”  
“I’ll just go over to his house, knock on his door, and give myself over to him. That’s the right choice isn’t it. That’s the good thing to do.”  
Lou shivers. Another tear drips onto the lapel of her coat. Debbie lifts her hand, taking the lapel in her fingers. Lou becomes stone. 

“You’re just like my husband, selling me off to another man because I’m not what you bargained for. _He_ sold me for a thousand silver. So what’s your price, Lou? Tammy?” Debbie rubs the tear stained into the fabric of the lapel between her fingers and then flicks it back against her chest. “Well it’s nice to know my market value has gone up.”

Lou watches her turn and walk towards the door. She can’t move for wanting to chase after Debbie, and wanting her to keep walking away. She is still standing, fixed to the spot, long after Debbie is gone. Then she smells blood.

Constance is standing next to her, also looking at the door. She holds a tall glass of blood out to Lou. Lou slowly takes it. The girl turns and, without looking, slaps a hand on Lou’s shoulder as she leaves through the hallway. 

 

* * *

Nine Ball is arching her eyebrow as Debbie approaches the bar.  
“Ain’t you a little dressed up for this place?” she asks, wiping a spot on the counter for Debbie as she eases onto a stool.   
“I like to look my best.” She knows she doesn’t. There’s a blood stain somewhere on the satin near her thigh. Her hair is probably not as smooth as she likes it to be. She smells of Claude. She smells of Tammy too, and it’s not that the woman’s scent isn’t pleasant, it’s that she should never smell of the two of them at once.

“Mmmhm.” Nine Ball begins pouring her blood from a dark, narrow bottle. When she slides it across, Debbie lifts it without acknowledgement and drains it without stopping.   
“Amita finally throw you out,” Nine Ball says, as she refills the glass.   
Debbie just sits there, watching it. “It was strongly suggested that I find alternate lodgings for the foreseeable future.”  
Nine Ball nudges the glass back to her and then leans back, folding her arms. There are others about the establishment. Small groups around tables, couples sharing booths, their chatter quiet and comfortable. Debbie starts to feel more at ease. 

“You’re always welcome here, Deb.”  
Debbie looks up at her, nodding, because she thinks she doesn’t deserve a friend right now, and least of all in Nine Ball. “I could have finished her.”  
Nine Ball shrugs. “Honey, so could I.”

Debbie looks down into the glass, at the red. “He wanted this. This.” She jabs her finger down on the counter. “Me. On my own.”  
“But you’re not.”  
“I may as well be.”  
“Baby, you ain’t on your own.” She gives Debbie a stern look. 

The preserved blood is calming. Debbie can feel her nerves settling.  
“Maybe it’s time you told me what was going on,” Nine Ball suggests, innocently feeling the neck of the bottle on the counter.   
Debbie hums, something approximating a smile on her lips.   
“Tell you what. Let’s shoot some pool. I win, you tell me. You win, you can stay here free as long as you like.”

Debbie snorts.   
“Come on. You got a good chance o’ winning. I don’t have Lou with me,” Nine Ball points out.  
Debbie rolls her bottom lip over her teeth and bites down. Her eyes begin to burn from the salt in her tears as she looks up at her. “Neither do I...”

 

* * *

There is a dress draped over the back of a chair, and a pair of shoes waiting on the floor. Tammy sits up in bed, wincing. Her head is pulsing and for a moment the room spins. As she makes her way to the chair she catches herself in the mirror by the standing wardrobe. 

She stops. A hand drifts up to her neck, if only to confirm by the movement that it is her own reflection. On one side of her neck are neat, imperceptible bite marks. On the other, dark discoloured bruising where teeth not only pierced her skin, but crushed and damaged her flesh. Trembling, Tammy frantically combs her hair over her shoulder with her fingers to conceal it. 

She is still shaking a little as she is securing the buckle of her shoe and there’s a knock at the bedroom door.   
“Knock, knock! It’s me. Rose.”  
Tammy stands abruptly, checking herself over, making sure her hair is over her shoulders. “Yes, come in.”  
The door opens a little and Rose’s wild hair and pale face appear from behind it. Her eyes are squeezed shut. “Are y’ decent?”  
“Yes, it’s fine.”

She opens her eyes one at a time, and then smiles at the sight of her. “Well, good morning!” She comes into the room as though propelled by a gust of wind. “D’you like the dress? You can ‘ave it. Jus’ somethin’ I threw together. It suits you.”

Tammy draws herself together as Rose moves around her. Her hand is holding down her hair around her neck, her other arm hugged around her middle.   
“Oh, dear, what’s wrong? Y’don’t like it?”   
“What? No. I do. It’s beautiful.”

Rose squints, and Tammy holds her breath.   
“...Let me see.”  
Tammy shrugs and stammers. “S-see what?”  
Rose rolls her hand in the air. “Show me. C’mon.”

Something about Rose’s tone, her crooked yet perfectly balanced posture, Tammy finds comforting. She lowers the protective hand weighing down her hair and Rose takes a step closer. With the backs of two fingers she parts the pale golden locks back from her neck and shoulder. Rose is quiet for a long time, and Tammy watches several expressions shift on her regal features. 

For the length of time Rose stares at the bruise on her neck Tammy’s panic rises. Rose catches the look on her face, and withdraws her hand. She takes Tammy’s shoulders and tries to hold her gaze.  
“Dear. Look at me.”  
Somehow, from somewhere, Tammy finds the composure to look down at her.   
“It’ll fade. Disappear. He marked you like that because that was all he could do. If anythin’ it’s a sign of how weak an’ pathetic he is.”

Tammy purses her lips and tries to smile in appreciation. Rose lifts aside the hair on the other side of her neck and inspects the tiny pale marks there. Tammy feels a blush rise in her cheeks.   
“Do you think I’m foolish? For trusting Debbie?” Tammy asks her quietly.   
Rose pets her hair back in place. “Absolutely not. Y’ ask me she’s the fool. She was always difficult but this business five years ago...” she shakes her head. 

“Do you know what happened?” Tammy ventures.   
Rose clamps her mouth shut.   
“So you do know. I overheard you and the Duchess talking.”  
“Don’t think yer gettin’ it outa me.” Rose points a stern finger up at her.   
“Can you at least tell me about...Debbie called them the Agents. The ones who arrested her. I’d never heard of them before...”

Rose blinks and rears back at the waist. “Gosh.” She sticks a finger over her chin and looks at various spots about the room. “I s’pose so.”  
Tammy eases herself back down on the end of the bed as Rose begins to pace about in front of her.   
“It’s like this. They’re not...people. Not really.”  
“They’re not like you?”

“Gosh no. Well if they are, they hide it well.”  
“And they come when someone writes an arrest warrant?” Tammy asks.   
Rose cocks her head. “Yes, that’s right.”  
“Does someone in the Council write the bill?” 

Rose folds her arms, clearly amused that Tammy already knows all the facts. “Yes.”  
“...Claude Becker is a member of the Council isn’t he...” It has never been said, but in fairness she has never actually asked. The conversation she overheard the other night confirmed it.  
“You didn’t know that?” Rose frowns.  
Tammy shrugs and shakes her head miserably. “I was so afraid of him. Of even mentioning him. And it never came up. It makes sense now though.”

“He’s mad at my Daphne for these new mortal protection laws. She managed t’ get the Council to outvote ‘im by promising to outlaw Hunting.” Rose swells with pride.   
“I didn’t know that,” Tammy shifts uncomfortably on the bed hearing about how their lives are governed. That the Duchess has to make such bargains on behalf of mortals, just so they can live in a little less fear. 

“You probably also didn’t know...” Rose’s eyes take on a dark quality. “Mister Becker also wrote Debbie’s arrest warrant.”


	13. Chapter 13

Rose tells Tammy all about the Kluger estate in a series of scrambled stories that weave and loop and crisscross so confusingly, Tammy knows as much about the manor when she started telling them as when she finishes. 

“And this,” Rose says, with some presumed grandeur, “Is the greenhouse.”  
Tammy is thinking about Lou, and Debbie, and why neither of them have come for her yet. She worries about what that means. A fear takes her that Debbie has decided to cut her out of her life for her own good. That Lou is too disgusted knowing Claude has tasted her. More and more fears burrow into her heart, carving out a hole to fill. 

She doesn’t realize that they have entered the greenhouse until Daphne is repeating her name. She is standing in amongst rows of planters, bursting with strange colours and stranger shapes, and is leaning to one side as though to align herself with wherever Tammy’s attention is focussed. 

“Oh. I’m sorry,” Tammy says.  
Daphne casts her eyes on the bloom of a dark flower looming near her shoulder because she thinks that is what had Tammy so distracted. “It’s beautiful isn’t it. I mean, it’s scary,” she says, throwing out her fingers. She cocks her head the other way. “But the way the petals seem to change shade even as you look at it draws you in.”

“You both gonna be alright here?” Rose asks. “Cause I’m gonna head t’ the shop.”  
“Yes, thank you, Rose,” Daphne says.  
Tammy isn’t okay. She wants to go home, but she stays quiet and smiles.  
“Right then,” Rose turns, but Daphne reaches out and grabs her shoulder, pulling her back.  
“Wait, wait.” 

The Duchess twirls her by the shoulder, spinning the woman around like a top and, clutching her face in both hands, kisses her so powerfully Tammy feels all the air sucked out of her own lungs. Rose staggers when the young woman lets her go, and Daphne dabs a demure knuckle to her lips.  
“Okay, you can go now,” she says, shooing her away.

Rose has lost her bearings. “Right. Yes.” She manages to calibrate herself towards the door and makes a few stiff steps towards it. Tammy watches her go, and when she looks back at Daphne finds herself staring. Not in disbelief, but with curiosity. She would not have noticed it before now, but she sees it as plainly as she sees it in her own reflection; the tiny, pale marks on her neck. 

Tammy begins to examine her with the same beguiled admiration with which Daphne is examining her plants. If she is aware of the attention she doesn’t indicate that she is uncomfortable with it, and Tammy follows her down the aisle. From amongst an assortment of tools, Daphne picks up some gloves and begins to pull them over her hands. 

“Are you wondering about us?” Daphne asks.  
Tammy looks down, running her finger along the table. “No, Duchess.”  
“Please.” Daphne tugs her gloves to secure the fit. “It’s Daphne.”  
Tammy is shaking her head. “I...”

“Do you know how long it has been since I’ve had a fellow mortal I can talk to?” Daphne interrupts dramatically. She picks up a pair of pruning shears and waves it about. “Many...many years.” She pauses thoughtfully. “Okay, well, many for a mortal anyway.” She begins to walk with purpose to one of the planters at the next table over. “My parents died seven years ago. Ever since then the only mortals I speak to are either prominent city figures or citizens with complaints. Amita left me alone with Asher once. Fuck me, he must be astounding in bed because those were the longest two minutes of my life. All he talked about was bottles.”

Tammy watches her cutting tiny pink blooms into a small pouch.  
“Amita has been great though. She’s not like the others. You know? Not on the Council, but...” Daphne frowns, uncertain for a moment. “She really should be...”  
“Why isn’t she?” Tammy asks, suddenly curious.  
“It is incredibly rare that a position opens up. Hasn’t happened in my lifetime, or that of my parents.” Daphne moves along to another plant, carefully taking its stems between her fingers, and cutting choice buds into another pouch. “Or theirs.”

“Is that how you know Debbie? Through Amita?” Tammy asks.  
Daphne smirks. “Mhm. Amita has always been close to our family, going back generations. As an advocate for mortal rights our family would often consult with her whenever drafting a proposal for the Council. Whenever my parents threw parties or held gatherings, I used to get so excited because Amita would be there.”

Tammy bites her lips in a barely suppressed smile.  
“But,” Daphne wobbles her head, side to side. “I was also anxious because you never knew when she would bring Debbie Ocean along.” She turns to Tammy, her voice low and confidential. “I was terrified of her!”

As a child, Debbie Ocean was the stuff of Tammy’s nightmares. Her lips part, hanging now on Daphne’s every word, because her heart has started a frenzied dance in her chest at the prospect of learning anything about the woman before she met her.  
“She was this tall, dark, spectral thing, you know? I swear, she would glide across the floor. If I ever snuck down from my room to spy on the parties, it didn’t matter where I tried to hide, she always looked right at me. And when I turned around, she was always right behind me. Every fucking time.”

“Sounds like her,” Tammy says, touching her chest and remembering Debbie doing the same thing to her.  
Daphne sets her hand down over the shears on the counter, leaning as she turns to face her. “She used to say things to me like, ‘You’re so small, you’re not even worth drinking’ and ‘Maybe I could have you as a snack’.” Daphne sweeps her hand sharply across the space in front of her. “I am not ashamed to say, five year old me wet herself.”

“She wouldn’t have hurt you, though. I mean...” Tammy doesn’t know what evidence she even has to support her claim. In fact Debbie has always made it very clear that she has done many terrible things in her past. That she is still capable of those things. Daphne sees that she is struggling to reconcile with that.

“One time,” Daphne says, solemnly, “I must have been...seventeen. My parents were throwing a huge ball. I had been to balls before but this time my parents had arranged a partner for me. He was the son of a banker, very influential. I was excited at first. He was really, really cute.” 

Tammy tries to smile but she is already filled with dread.  
“He turned out to be really boring. Kept talking about silver. About how I’d have to learn to invest properly once I was governing the city. Men, right? I kept trying to lose him all night. Somehow he ended up trapping me in a linen closet. It happened so fast. He was there, shoving my face into the linen, lifting my dress, and then he was gone.” Daphne is no longer looking at Tammy, but at some space far away in her past. Tammy almost jumps when her gaze flicks back to her. She hadn’t noticed how deep they were and now she feels trapped inside them.

“When I gathered myself and looked out Debbie was there holding him off the ground by his neck. I just watched. I don’t know for how long. I watched him kicking and choking. She had this cold, calm look in her eyes. Both of my parents, and our guards, started casting wards. I don’t know how many they cast before her strength finally gave out.”

Tammy swallows and a breath shudders out of her.  
“...But they kept casting. When she was down on her hands and knees my ‘partner’...” Daphne’s eyes begin to glisten, “He...started kicking her. Just...” she shakes her head because she cannot give words to what she saw. “No one stopped him. So he kept going. If she were a mortal woman...she would have been paste by the time they pulled him away from her.”

Tammy’s hands shake as she seeks to shield and protect her own body, hugging herself.  
“The worst part...they thought he had tried to protect me from her. And he let them treat him like a hero. And because of the wards...”  
“She couldn’t remember what really happened...” Tammy says.  
“None of them could. Amita. The others. The wards had them all knocked down. And, of course, it didn’t matter what I said. Debbie was banned from the estate. She still doesn’t believe me to this day. Thinks I’m just trying to make her feel better.”

Tammy’s heart is breaking. The idea that Debbie would sooner believe she was capable of assaulting the young Duchess than being her timely rescuer was tragic and infuriating.  
“Sometimes I think she knew it would happen that way,” Daphne says, picking up the shears again. She examines it in her hand, turning it over, testing the tension in the handles, snipping the blades. “She held him up like that waiting for someone to notice, so they would cast their wards and she’d forget the whole thing.”

Tammy shakes her head. “No.” She can’t believe that. She won’t believe that Debbie would only do something good if she knew it would be misread, if she knew she would forget doing it. “Even if she knew how it would look. Even if she knew how it would end. She wanted _him_ to remember. To remember her power. Her strength. That if she decided to, she could have popped that head of his right off his neck just by giving it a gentle squeeze.”

Daphne frowns at her. “Ew. Gross.”  
Tammy blushes incredulously and thinks about Daphne using the term, ‘paste’, only seconds ago.  
“But you might be right...” Daphne sighs. “Anyway. When my parents died, I lifted the ban. Debbie didn’t want to come back. Didn’t want to see me. She was afraid she’d try to attack me again. I mean...Get a grip, Deb. She’s so fucking dramatic sometimes, am I right?”

Tammy permits herself a small chuckle. “Sometimes?”  
Daphne is delighted. Tammy admits that it is nice to have someone to talk to who understands what it’s like as a mortal trying to deal with these powerful, eternal ladies.  
“She’s so sure she knows everything. The woman doesn’t even know herself. _I know_. I know her. She’s not the monster she believes she is. Maybe she was once. But not anymore.”

It is the single greatest relief to hear her say so. Tammy wants to hear more from her about Debbie, anything that reaffirms her faith in the woman. Here is a mortal who has known Debbie since she was a child. Not only that, but a mortal who isn’t the least afraid of her.  
“Can I ask you something? About Debbie?”

Daphne turns back to the plants, opening another pouch. “Sure.”  
“How did she become involved with Claude Becker?”  
“Oh.” Daphne gives an exaggerated groan. “That.”  
Tammy is worried she shouldn’t have asked. But Daphne begins to snip away saying, “It happened after my parents died and I lifted the ban. They met at the funeral. I actually introduced them.” She stops her pruning and turns sharply to Tammy. “You know, that fuckstain actually said to me that he had been eager to meet the woman bold enough to attack me?”

Tammy wishes she was brave enough to insult the man, even out of his earshot.  
“I think he felt he’d found a kindred spirit.”  
“But...she was with Lou at that time. Right?”  
Daphne chokes a laugh and a terrible smile stretches around her teeth. “Yeah, she was. Literally, on her arm.” Daphne adjusts her grip on the shears to act out the next part of the story, “The guy takes out a silver knife and says, ‘Hold on. Let me just get that for you.’ The tip was a hair from Lou’s chest when Debbie caught his wrist.”

The tip of the shears are inches from Tammy’s chest. “What...?” She feels her throat constrict.  
“Debbie downplayed it,” says Daphne, drawing back the shears. “But he was relentless. He tried several times throughout the wake. I think he saw it as a cute little game between them. People were even spurring him on. This was the first time I’d even met Lou. I could see she was trying so hard to be well behaved but it got to her. She was going to snap. If she tried to fight back, if she was anything other than polite to him...”

Daphne pauses, shears poised around the gorgeous pale bloom of a thorn stemmed plant. She snips it and Tammy watches it fall pitifully into the pouch beneath it.  
“Debbie was getting desperate too, trying to keep her calm. In the end I just told her to leave, take Lou home.”  
“How is he allowed to get away with that...?” Tammy asks. “Leslie paid the fine. Lou should be accepted.”

“For the same reason he’s allowed to get away with this.” Daphne stops and turns to her, reaching out to Tammy and brushing her hair back from her neck, revealing the mangled colours on her skin. Tammy looks away from her shamefully. Daphne brushes her hair back in place and draws the string around the pouches. “Here.” She holds them out to her. “Give these to Nine Ball. She can use them to mix you something to help clear that bruise.”

“Oh...” Tammy takes the little pouches. She cradles them close to her body. She is touched by the gesture. “Do you often supply her with ingredients?” She looks around the greenhouse now, noticing the peculiar ecosystem properly for the first time. The subtle twitching of leaves, the slow bob of stems laden proudly with large and peculiar blossoms, they seem to Tammy to be a silent audience waiting with their unique gifts until being called upon to present them. 

“My family used to have a resident alchemist. She was killed by a hunter.”  
“I’m sorry.”  
“Don’t be. She killed my parents. She’d been slowly poisoning them for years”  
Tammy swallows and her mouth is dry again. “Oh...”  
“Lou introduced me to Nine Ball. I offered her a place here but she didn’t want to leave her bar. She still mixes potions for me, though.”

Tammy starts to explore, admiring all the flower, shrubs, mushrooms and other plants. “Can I ask you another question?”  
“Please! Ask me anything. And you don’t need to keep asking for permission,” Daphne says, swatting the air.  
Tammy stops to look at a flower with dark petals. They seemed to swirl velvet blue in places. “Why was Lou so awkward with you? The way you talk about Debbie and Amita, you seem really close. Like family. That doesn’t extend to Lou?”

Daphne walks over to join her. “Because she was in public.”  
Tammy frowns.  
“Oh, I don’t mean that she’s shy!” Daphne puffs dismissively. “I mean that she has to mind her manners in public. Like mortals. She’s young for her kind and she forgets protocol all the time. She’s not afraid of offending me. She’s afraid of offending anyone who catches her fucking up.”

Tammy nods, understanding. “Did you...I mean...when Debbie was in exile...”  
Daphne’s eyebrow raises. “Are you trying to ask if Lou and I have fucked?”  
“What?! No!” Tammy’s cheeks burn. “I just wanted to know if you saw her in that time. Did she visit...?”  
Daphne doesn’t answer. She continues to stare, her eyebrow still a perfectly formed arch. Tammy bites her lip. 

“A few times,” Daphne says.  
Tammy sighs and smiles.  
“To fuck.”  
Tammy coughs. 

Daphne snorts. “She needed a distraction. Comfort.” She leans close to Tammy. “I also kinda think she just needed to be with someone who wasn’t strong enough to pin her down.”  
Tammy is still burning and her temperature only rises. She wonders if that’s the reason Lou likes her. Her only experience with Lou was also with Debbie. She remembers the way Debbie held Lou for her, restrained her. She shivers thinking about Lou pinning her down.

Tammy is very red and very quiet.  
“You want to know if I’ve fucked Debbie.”  
Tammy grimaces.  
“I haven’t.”  
“Oh.”  
“She won’t. She is still convinced she tried to...you know.” 

“Oh...”  
There’s a lopsided smile on Daphne’s red lips. Tammy gestures to the flower she has been trying and failing to focus on. “So what’s this flower called?”  
Daphne’s expression barely stays together, because Tammy’s attempt to change the subject is in no way as natural and organic as the flora they stand amongst. 

“This is the Whisper Seed flower.”  
“Pretty name,” Tammy says, admiring it.  
“The seeds are used to make a mind control drug.”  
“Oh. I think I’m familiar with it.”  
Daphne looks at her curiously.

“Leslie used it on Lou the first time I met her. And recently a hunter used it on me.” Tammy peers into the dark, strangely ethereal ebbing of blue within the petals.  
Daphne clucks her tongue. “Hm. Well I suppose that falls under personal use. Due to the nature of the seed, growing the flower is outlawed.”  
Tammy frowns, looking between Daphne and the flower. 

“Oh! I’m allowed to grow it,” the Duchess says, holding a defensive hand to her chest. “This is the only one. Or, it should be the only one. You know, it was only discovered a few decades ago? This thing is fairly new, even for people like Debbie who think just because they’ve lived for hundreds of years they fucking know everything.”

Her voice comes laced with resentment. Tammy can see it in her eyes, too, as she glowers at the mysterious plant. She can see the pain Daphne feels, that Debbie won’t let them be close. Tammy is suddenly aware of the distance between Debbie and herself in this very moment. 

Daphne begins to pluck some of the seeds from the flower. “Open one of the pouches.”  
Tammy fumbles but does so and Daphne drops a few seeds inside and draws the string tight again. “She can consider it payment for mixing that ointment for you,” says the Duchess, and then heads back over to the tools to return the shears. Tammy turns on the spot, unsure of what to do. 

“Alright.” Daphnes claps her hands. “Let’s go. Lou’s waiting for you in the lounge.”  
Tammy’s breath catches and she almost drops all the pouches cradled in her arms. “Lou? She’s here?” She scurries after Daphne who is nearly out the door. “How long has she been here? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Lou stands bolt upright the moment the two of them walk into the room. Tammy lunges forward but then stops herself anxiously, because Lou hasn’t approached her, and if she does, she is afraid of what she will do, what she will say. She wonders fearfully if she smells Claude on her still. 

“Lou, you dumb fuck, there’s no one around, go get your girl.” Daphne flops herself exhaustedly into a luxurious armchair and Lou suddenly animates. She is in front of Tammy in a heartbeat, her long arms around her, a hand in the back of her hair, and she is breathing her in.  
“Tammy...”  
The sound of her voice, saying her name, Tammy had forgotten its depth and softness and how its tenor rumbles gently in her chest, warming her and calming her instantly. 

Then, as she is easing her back, her hand is brushing her hair from her neck, and Tammy holds her breath at the look in Lou’s eyes.  
Tammy hiccups in a panic. “I-I haven’t had a chance to bathe yet-”  
There is a finger on her lips but it somehow does not stop them quivering. Lou sweeps her fingers lovingly across her brow and behind her ear, shaking her head. 

“Are you okay?” she asks.  
“I am, now that you’re here.”  
“Sorry about that. Amita thought it would be best to spend a night away from us. Give you some time to...”  
“To...?”  
Lou rests her hands on Tammy’s shoulders. “Recover. Think. Get to know the Duchess,” she adds with the sideways nod of her head in Daphne’s direction.

“Well, it was nice spending time with Daphne,” Tammy says.  
“Aww!” Daphne mewls, fingers tucked under her chin.  
“But being away from you doesn’t help me recover. And I really don’t like being left alone with my thoughts.”  
Lou gives a series of small nods. “I’m sorry. We just thought-”  
“Rose told me.”

Lou frowns. She steps back, arms folding. “Told you what?”  
“That you didn’t want me to see you and Debbie fight.”  
“Yeah, well.” Lou sniffs, “I’m no match for her.”  
Tammy sighs. “What happened?”

 

* * *

Lou won’t get out of the vehicle and John tells Tammy to be careful. She smirks at him as she closes the door and heads into the bar.  
“I mean it!” John calls after her through the window. She finds herself smiling as she walks down the alley. She’s never had so many people who cared about her before. She used to be so invisible, even in her husband’s eyes, until the night Lou spotted her in a crowd and drew her into her world. 

The bar is a spirited assortment of laughter, shouts and cheers to the crack of billiard balls bouncing off each other. There are a lot of mortals wearing scarves, but they hang about in groups drinking together, enjoying themselves until approached. Tammy thinks that it was a lifetime ago she was nervously tying a silk scarf around her own neck, fingers trembling so much she barely managed the knot Debbie so effortlessly pulled loose. 

She hefts the bag on her shoulder as she makes her way through the crowd and tucks it around her hip so she can squeeze up to the counter. She knows she doesn’t have to do anything to get Leslie’s attention. All she has to do is wait for her to finish serving the people who were there ahead of her, because the woman has no doubt picked up her scent and knows she is there. 

“Hey beautiful.” Leslie leans on the counter in front of her, accentuating her cleavage. The confidence with which Tammy entered the bar crumbles. Leslie is smirking at her and, mercifully, stands upright. “Where the fuck is Lou?”  
“Uh...” Tammy clears her throat. “Waiting in the car.”

Something flickers across Leslie’s features, but then she rolls her eyes. “Debbie’s not even here.”  
“John said he drove her here the other night,” Tammy says, disappointed.  
“Oh, she’s staying here. She’s just not here right now. Gone somewhere a bit more...fancy.” Leslie wiggles her fingers in the air. 

“Oh...”  
“Aw, honey.”  
“It’s okay. Actually, I have something for you. From the Duchess.”  
Leslie smiles with anticipation. She leaves someone else to tend the bar and leads Tammy through the curtain into the V.I.P area, and through a smaller curtain into a corridor that leads to her room. 

“Can I ask,” Tammy says, holding the curtain aside as she ducks into the room. “What’s with all the curtains? Wouldn’t doors be more secure?”  
“That’s exactly the problem.” Leslie walks over to a shelf on the other side of the room and comes back with some empty specimen jars. “Easier to run through a curtain than a door when hunters are throwing wards on your ass.”

It hits her unexpectedly hard. Tammy looks back at the curtain over the doorway, then peers back at Leslie.  
“...Does it happen a lot?”

Leslie sets the jars down on her work station and huffs. “The people who come here...we’re easy targets. Most of my patrons are young. Like Lou. They don’t have the silver or the status for those Lounges.”  
“I meant...to you.”

Leslie looks up at her, then rises up straight and folds her arms. “One morning I woke up. I smelt it. Blood. I followed the smell, out my room, down the hall, into the V.I.P corner...it was everywhere. She must have caught up with me at the door because it was covered with blood. Mine. Hers.”

She looks back down at the station counter. “When I came back to my room I saw I’d left myself a note. _Get rid of the fucking doors_. I knocked them off their hinges right then and there.”  
Tammy doesn’t know what to say. She suddenly realizes why it is that Leslie never comes to visit at Amita’s, or why she wasn’t at the ball, why she really turned down Daphne’s job offer. Why she’s never seen her outside of this bar. She was afraid of being caught behind a closed door. 

Now Leslie is looking at her nervously, concerned, perhaps, because she can see in the softness to her expression that she has come to that conclusion.  
“It’s just practical,” Leslie insists finally.  
Tammy nods. “It’s smart.”

It was exactly the right thing to say. Leslie gives a satisfied nod. “Exactly. Thank you.” She breathes in deeply and puffs the air rapidly from her lungs. “So. What she send me this time.”  
Tammy begins to burrow into her bag and starts handing her the pouches. “Uh. Actually. Daphne said you could use these ingredients to mix something for me.”  
“Oh? What do you need?”

Tammy’s hand goes up to her neck but stops before sweeping her hair aside. “It’s uh...”  
Leslie is looking into the pouches, but noticing Tammy stalling she frowns. Tammy bites her lip and tilts her head a little, but still doesn’t reveal the mark. Leslie stops, placing the pouch down on the station table and approaches her. 

Tammy lets her tuck her hair around her ear, leaning a little into her touch as she does so. Leslie winces through grit teeth. “Damn, girl.”  
Tammy smiles thinly and Leslie smoothes her hair back in place.  
“I can definitely make you something.” She goes back to the pouches, transferring their contents into jars. She chuckles when she discovers the seeds. 

“She’s too good to me.”  
Tammy watches Leslie holding a seed between her thumb and finger. “Actually,” she says, “I wonder if you could do me a favour.”


	14. Chapter 14

He lies beside her, his hand, under the covers, strokes idly up and down her thigh. Debbie has not looked away from his eyes in long whiles, not looking for but waiting to see whatever it is that she keeps coming back to. Or maybe, she thinks, it’s not something in him that she comes to, but rather something in Lou that she needs to get away from. 

Not a bad thing, necessarily. If she were brave enough to take stock of Lou’s qualities and land upon the specific thing that keeps her running into Claude’s arms, despite everything about him that repulses and revolts her, then she might be able to overcome it. But she’s afraid of what that thing might be. Or that it might be nothing in Lou at all. Or maybe she’s just been at this game with him for so long that all lines had blurred, and she had become comfortable, too comfortable, with the arrangement. 

Claude has a way of anticipating her every want, her every step, and there’s only so many reconfigurations she can make until she begins repeating patterns.  
“I could give her to you.” His voice is gentle.  
“Who?” She hears her own voice, softer than she’s heard it before. 

He reaches for a lower part of her leg, down behind her knee, making her shift just a little at the sensation.   
“Tammy.”  
For a moment, and she cannot tell for how long, time bends around her, coming to a fixed point before everything stops. When it relaxes and comes to flow again she feels as though she has been through every conceivable and inconvenient emotion and come out the other side purged. 

Claude cannot read and so ascribes to her expression, confusion, so he gives her some clarity. “I could fast track the approval process. You know how long these applications take. She wouldn’t need to present herself for assessment.”  
Debbie hums and reaches out to stroke his jaw line with a fingernail. “But there’s a catch. Hm?”  
He grins, amused and delighted. “Of course.”

“Does it involve Lou by any chance?”  
She feels his fingers press into the back of her knee, and she squirms.  
“A wrong needs to be righted.”  
“It _was_ righted. You’re just unwilling to accept that.”

Neither of them have risen their voice, because there’s no need. This is just a game. An idle occupation between centuries. And while Debbie is willing to play it, it has stopped being a game for her. It stopped being a game five years ago when she waited for the Agents to come and take her aboard that train. 

“There’s a process. They should all have to go through it, like I did,” he says.  
“I didn’t go through your process,” she reminds him. Her hand settles on his bare shoulder.   
He shrugs. “No law was broken either. No wrong needs to be righted.”  
She smiles at the way he talks about what happened to her as though she was privileged. She rolls close to him, kissing the edge of his mouth. “It’s a very sweet offer. But it’s hard enough looking after Lou. I don’t need another baby on my hands.”

Claude chuckles. “I could help you look after her. Tammy, I mean.”  
“Oh, could you?” She kisses him again, and his hand brushes her hip and then tucks in between her legs.   
“Teach her some proper respect. Etiquette.”  
Debbie lets the air whisper over her lips as his fingers nudge and wriggle into her. She lets him tease her because, for now, it’s keeping him busy. 

“I’m surprised you’re even considering this,” Debbie says. Her fingers grip into his shoulder. “Thought she’d have more value to you as a fearful, tasty little mortal.”  
“Because it’s what you want.”  
“I haven’t wanted to turn anyone. Ever. That hasn’t changed.”

She closes her eyes as he rolls her over, kissing her breast and her neck as he eases himself on top of her.   
“You don’t want to keep Tammy forever? You want her to grow old and die?”  
“Yes.”   
“You’ve been spending too much time with that Amita. Taking mortal lover after mortal lover.”

Debbie grunts when he thrusts into her. His eyes are piercing above her.   
“I know. I mean, what do they have that I don’t have?...” she smirks up at him.   
“Hmm. She’s taken leave of her senses a long time ago, clearly.” He kisses her passionately, then gazes down at her as he moves within her. For a while he is quiet, but he never takes his eyes off her. Then he says, “Move in with me.”

“I’m happy with Nine Ball, thanks.”  
“She’s no better than Lou.”  
“She’s no threat to anyone.”  
“She has the ear of the Duchess.”

Debbie would laugh. “You’re not worried about Daphne Kluger, now, are you, Mister Becker?”  
He is starting to grimace and groan in exertion. “The only good thing about her,” he says between grunts, “Is that she seems to have no interest in breeding. She’ll be the, nnf, end of the Kluger line.”  
“You’re disgusting.”   
He only grins and pounds her harder. 

“Someone ought to take her out. Before she introduces any more silly laws.”  
“You want to start a war with the mortals? They outnumber us. And they can use wards.”  
“You’re right. Suppose, mmf, she’s not the problem. People on the Council are getting soft.”  
“Times are changing.”

“We’re not on some inevitable trajectory. We have control. We make the times, hnn, what they are.” He restrains as though to demonstrate his point. He has control. Debbie merely moves her hips, just enough to make him feel it, to demonstrate to him how little control he really has. He knows this at once, and his hand is suddenly and tightly around her throat. She doesn’t need the air, but her body still responds as though she does. The pressure in her skull, the burning in her lungs, the trauma to her oesophagus combine to render her in a blind panic. 

The face above her is one she hasn’t seen in years. A clinical, unfeeling mask, recording his observations in his mind every little twitch, squirm, shudder, and spasm she makes now that she endures the torture indefinitely. He seems to watch for the moment she prays for death. And then the moment when she remembers that it will never come. Then he tries something new. He wants to know how long would it take her body to regrow a finger, or a liver, or an eye. The stages of regrowth amuse him, as though he were cultivating a macabre garden. 

Air suddenly and violently rushes down her throat, filling her dead lungs. Too fast. She sits upright, coughing, gasping, and, in her search for air, falls from the bed. Her eyes sting with tears and she cannot catch her breath. She wheezes and gapes as she sees feet come towards her. Claude sits on the side of the bed where he can watch her, wait for her to recover, and when she does, when he knows she will hear him, he says, “Aw, Debbie. Debbie, Debbie, Debbie.”

She feels his fingers in her hair, petting her.  
“Now. I enjoy playing this game with you. And so long as I do, the Council don’t find out about your little scheme.” The fingers in her hair twirl and brush and stoke affectionately. “Do you think they will be kind to your precious Duchess for her part in it? Do you think Amita, the little dressmaker, do you think they won’t blame you for what happens to her? Hm?”

Debbie has caught her breath and the air, the air she both does and doesn’t need quivers between her lips.   
“And that’s not to mention what will happen to Lou.”  
She stays quiet. He doesn’t need to mention what will happen. She knows.   
“And as much as I’d love to see how all of that plays out,” he says, as his fingers begin to tighten in her hair. He draws her head back until it is against the edge of the bed beside him and he can look her in the eyes. 

“I rather enjoy playing with you. Matching wits with you. But what I don’t enjoy,” his grip hardens, pulling her hair at the roots, making her wince. “Is being disrespected.”  
“I’m sorry.” She’s not actually sure if she means it. She’s not sure if she does or doesn’t want to have meant it. But she knows she should, at the very least, say it. 

He releases her. Without a word he rises from the bed. She watches him walk around her, behind her line of sight, but she can hear and she can smell. He takes his robe from the arm rest of a chair and throws it around his body.  
“I’m going to feed. You’re welcome to join me.”  
“You go ahead.”

She is still sitting on the floor when some young thing yelps downstairs. Debbie much prefers Lounges. She will take herself to one. But she will clean up first.

 

* * *

The air is crisp as they walk under lamplight through the park. It was, and still is, one of Tammy’s favourite places in the whole city. Not that she’s seen the whole city, but she has looked at maps and decided that there is no place like the park. The trees here are not as eerie or frightful as those in the woods, where they number as many as the stars in the sky or even more. She thinks it’s more. She huddles close to Lou when a shiver takes her. 

Lou takes her hand out of her coat pocket, entwines her fingers with hers, and puts their hands together back into her pocket. Casually, she gives a flick of her hair and they continue their casual stroll. 

Tammy thinks she must look incredibly dull in her heavy brown coat next to Lou. The slender blue garment accentuates and compliments her elegant stature. Or maybe it is Lou’s elegant stature that accentuates and compliments the coat. 

“This is my favourite place in the city,” Lou says.   
Tammy’s chest swells. “Mine too!”  
“Really?” Lou turns to look at her with a smile, one that lingers because she seems struck by something she sees in Tammy’s eyes. 

“Sometimes I would come here while my husband was at work,” Tammy tells her. “Sometimes...even when he was home.” She looks down. Inside her pocket, Lou gives her hand a squeeze. The broad paved path meanders around the edge of a slope around a still black lake and to a bridge over the river which feeds it. The river comes from the woods, bends and winds its way right through the city, and then disappears into the woods on the other side. 

As they begin to cross the bridge Tammy moves close to the edge to look over. “I used to make those little paper things when I was a kid. Boats, I think we called them. Small enough to fit through the bars at the city wall.”  
“Kids still do that,” Lou says.   
“Did you?”  
Lou peers over the edge. “I was more of a skimming stones kind of kid.”

Tammy smiles adoringly. “Of course you were.”  
Lou is still looking down over the bridge into the water. “Are you upset with me?”  
“No.”  
Lou scuffs her shoe on the bottom beam of the railing.  
“I’m not, Lou.”  
“I don’t know how you can forgive her,” Lou says. “How you can still...”

“It was my choice.”  
Lou frowns doubtfully.   
“You think I’m an innocent in all this. That Debbie is taking advantage of me, and she’s not.” She finds herself holding Lou’s hand more tightly, snug in her pocket. It’s what makes Lou finally look at her.   
“I would do anything for you. I would do anything to keep Claude Becker from harming you.”

Lou’s jaw is hard and her cheeks sunken. Her eyes, with their dark outline, are narrow and wet. “You shouldn’t have to.”  
“You shouldn’t have to live in constant fear that someone might just kill you because they don’t think you should be here.” She turns so she’s facing her, their hands still clasped together. With her other hand, Tammy reaches up, fingers curled, tentative, hesitant with some of that residual fear that, as a mortal, she should not, unsolicited, touch one of their kind. 

So instead of reaching their intended destination, Lou’s perfectly sculpted cheek, they brush feather light against the fine, pale strands of her hair. “But you do. You shouldn’t have to. But you do...”  
Lou reaches inside Tammy’s coat and around her middle, pulling her close. Lou tilts her head, searching her expression and, reading anticipation and consent, kisses her. 

When they part Tammy feels herself falling more and more in love, depths so impossible she thinks she will keep falling for ever. They continue to cross the bridge, Tammy feeling Lou holding her hand inside the warmth of her pocket.

The path runs along the grassy slope to a bench that overlooks the lake and the lights of the surrounding buildings that wall the plot of nature the city has trapped and tamed. They sit together on the bench. Lamp light quivers in the water. Their hands are still joined. Tammy is about to snuggle close when Lou rests her head on her shoulder. 

Tammy stills. She wonders if the woman hears the way her heart is skipping beats, or the way her breath stops.   
“I thought for sure you would want to leave,” Lou says.   
“Because of Claude?”  
“Because I made Debbie leave.”

Inside Lou’s warm coat pocket, Tammy begins to rub her thumb across the back of Lou’s hand.   
“You say that like you think she won’t come back.”   
“I told her I couldn’t be near her anymore...” Lou explains this calmly, like recounting a strange dream.  
“Ah.” Tammy squeezes her hand. 

“I said other things too. Awful things. I think I really hurt her this time.”  
Tammy understands. Debbie appears untouchable, impenetrable. It’s hard to know if anything gets through, let alone sticks.   
“Something tells me there isn’t a force in this whole city that could make Debbie give up on you. Not even you.”

Tammy watches the other people walking in the park, the gentle weight on her shoulder, the fingers woven with hers. Lou is quite content and doesn’t so much as stir beside her. Tammy wonders if her words had comforted her or if it is for some other reason that she settles. Tammy enjoys the view of the lake, imagining a young, mortal Lou skimming stones with other children. It was the sort of thing that could get you into a lot of trouble. Tampering with the river in any way carried severe punishments. It was, after all, the blood of the city. It kept the mortals alive which, in turn, kept it’s eternal inhabitants from an existence Debbie endured during her exile. 

She doesn’t realize until the weight lifts from her shoulder that there is someone standing close by. The strange woman rolls on her heels and toes, hands deep in her pockets, and nods to them. Tammy smiles and the woman smiles back. But Lou suddenly releases her hand, flailing, and is pulled back harshly against the bench. Two strong hands on her shoulders pin her there. 

“Lou!” Tammy instinctively grabs one of the hands and tries to pry it off.   
“Hey, whoa now,” the strange woman says, walking forward. She comes to stand in front of them, or, more specifically, in front of Lou. “Settle down.”  
Lou snarls. Her feet kick the grass, her torso twists uselessly. “Get your fucking hands off me!”

The woman holds up her hands. “It’s Lou, isn’t it? Lou Miller.”  
Tammy look frantically from Lou to the man holding her, to the woman standing in front of them.   
“Who are you? What do you want?” she asks.  
The woman looks at her now, smiling politely. “Oh, forgive me!” She laughs and places fingers to her chest. “I’m Annalese. This is my partner Vincent.”

Her friendliness, in every way, fills Tammy with dread. Annalese looks up at her partner, her arms lifting to clap casually against her sides. “We uh, we take care of other people’s mistakes.”  
Lou grunts and tugs but the grip on her shoulders is more than enough to keep her in place. It is the only indication for Tammy that this couple are not mortal. 

The woman reaches inside her coat and when Lou sees the light flash off the silver blade she roars and begins to twist and kick wildly. Tammy suddenly leaps to her feet and stands between them.   
“Just what the fuck do you think you are doing?” She has no idea from where inside her this voice is coming from. But it comes out of her with a strength and force that surprises everyone present.

The woman implores her. “What happened to Ms Miller was,” she rolls her hands as if to produce the right words, “An unfortunate accident. But she should have died. We merely mean to rectify that.”

“On whose authority?” Tammy demands. She can no longer hear Lou struggling and she is too afraid to turn around to see if she’s okay.   
“Look. You’re a mortal. You can’t possibly understand our ways.”  
“The fine was paid,” Tammy says, surprised at how calm she is keeping her voice. “Lou has every right to keep her life.”  
“Unfortunately,” the woman says through a grimace, “The life she has now is and never was hers to keep.”

Tammy cannot take her eyes off the blade turning and twisting in the woman’s hand. She contemplates trying to grab it but she knows she wouldn’t have the strength.   
“I can see you care for this woman. We promise to make it quick.”  
Tammy feels tears starting to sting in her eyes because she knows just how weak and useless she is. The woman starts to move forward and Tammy solidifies her stance. 

With a pitying expression on her face, the woman steps up to her. “I don’t want to hurt you. If you remain in my way I will simply move you. You are no obstacle to me.”  
Tammy looks the woman in the eyes through burning tears that will not fall. “Unfortunately,” she says, and whatever gave strength to her voice before has gone completely. “You will have to kill me...to get to her.”

Kindness and respect shape the gentle smile on the woman’s face. Tammy begins to hear Lou frantically calling her name. But the woman has reached up, smoothed her hand up her brow and down the back of her hair, taking a fist and, as she tugs back her head, Tammy lets out a small, hopeless sob. There’s a pulse of pain on her neck, and then a moment later, she is simply dropped to the ground. 

She cannot move or say a word. She can only watch, from the disorienting angle at which her body crumpled, the woman stand before Lou and begin to pull apart her coat and shirt. Lou cries. Tammy doesn’t want to watch and yet her eyes remain transfixed to the terrible scene. It is nothing to either of them to contend with Lou’s screams and struggles as her shirt is left open to reveal her pale, heaving chest. The woman draws back the blade, touching Lou’s cheek with soft affection, hushing her, telling her it will be over soon. 

Tammy can feel every string and sinew of her heart breaking. With each snap she feels in her own chest, the woman seems to flinch. Tammy watches her back away from Lou, rubbing her eyes.   
“Fuck! Wards!”  
“Just do it! Quickly!”  
“Ugh! I can’t!”  
“Rgh! Just go! Go!”

Tammy cannot see where they go. She can only see Lou throwing herself from the bench to land hard and awkwardly on the ground. Tammy wants her to run. Get away. But Lou crawls determinedly towards her, even as Tammy sees the dark figure approaching her from behind. Tammy screams at her, to warn her, but it sounds like a whisper in her own ears. 

The figure simply stands there. For a moment Tammy thinks that the sound of her voice has made it stop and panic. But as Lou struggles to drag herself another few inches along the grass, the hunter moves again. It stops next to Lou, who is now too exhausted, weighed down too heavily by so many wards. The hunter crouches, and rolls Lou onto her back. 

They struggle together. Eventually the hunter pins her down and leans down low. Tammy cannot see. A sheet of jet black hair prevents her. But Lou simply lies there, beaten. And the hunter looks up across the lake. If she had the energy, Tammy would burst into tears. 

“Tammy? You okay?” Constance carefully eases Tammy’s body into a more comfortable position so she can look up at the stars. Then Tammy can see her miraculous face pop back into view as she inspects the wound on her neck. “Yeah. You’re okay. You’re okay. That was a close one, hey? Shit!” The girl is grinning. 

Tammy wants to laugh. She thinks she might be, but she’s not sure if it is showing. Constance looks over her shoulder, her long hair flipping in a fantastic wave. She looks back down at her.   
“Think it’s safe to drop those wards. I’mma go check on Lou. Don’t move!” She makes to dart away but then drops back on her haunches. “I mean... Well, you get it!”

Tammy sees her hurry off out of view. A moment later she returns and Lou is with her.   
“Lou...” Tammy hears her own voice croak.  
Lou bends a knee and crouches over her. The dark lines around her eyes have run completely down her cheeks. Her shirt is kept together with a single button in the incorrect hole. But the smile on her face is tender and strong. 

“We should get outa here,” Constance says, with a hand on Lou’s shoulder. “Dunno if they’ll be comin’ back.”  
Lou scoops her arms under Tammy and lifts her up, cradling her against her body. Then they continue their walk through the park.


	15. Chapter 15

Lou pours herself a drink from the decanter. When the liquor hits her tongue she feels her mind finally slow and settle. She can smell Amita behind her. She’s standing in the archway and Lou imagines a raised eyebrow on her face. She’s not supposed to be drinking from her private cabinet.   
“Pour me one too.”

Lou reaches over to the tray adjacent to the sofa and an armchair usually occupied by Asher as he reads the newspaper. Amita tucks her gown around her and eases back into the chair. Lou pours her a drink as Amita picks up and inspects the pair of reading glasses, smiles, and lovingly places them back on the tray. 

“Thanks,” she says as Lou hands her the glass. Lou settles back into the cushions of the sofa, knees spread, her blue silk gown only barely concealing her naked body. Amita has probably seen her naked more times than Debbie and Nine Ball combined and there isn’t an inch of her skin she hasn’t had to touch at some point, either to clean or to mend. Wounds that needed to be dressed, bones that needed to be set, filth that needed to be washed away. 

Only some of those times someone had tried to kill her. And some of those times she doesn’t even remember how she came to be broken and bleeding in the first place. But every time it was because she had gone out on her own.

“It’s not your fault.”  
Lou looks down at her glass in her lap. She brings it up to her mouth, letting it perch there between her fingers. She disagrees, but can’t find strong enough words to express it, and so occupies her tongue with drink. Amita takes a drink as well, then cradles the glass in both hands on her lap. 

“I was reckless,” Lou says, finally.   
“You just wanted a night alone with Tammy.”  
“At the cost of her safety?”   
“Constance was there.”  
“She took her sweet ass time.”

Amita snorts. “Apparently,” she says, slowly crossing her legs, “She was trying to stay out of your sensory range.”  
Lou takes another sip of drink. “Well that’s frightening.” She knows the girl is the product of two hunters, but she has been assured that Constance is no hunter. Evidently, she tracks like one.

“She was trying to give you two some privacy.”  
Lou just nods. Her anger isn’t at all directed at the girl. Constance is smart. Lou knows she had to be careful and choose her moment. She wasn’t just contending with the couple who attacked them. Constance had to be careful not to alert everyone in the whole damn vicinity. Because while they may have simply ignored Lou’s screams and Tammy’s pleas, they sure as fuck wouldn’t ignore the potential threat signalled by the wards of a hunter nearby.

“Tammy asleep?” Amita asks.  
“Yeah.”  
“Constance says she was really brave. Put herself between you and those zealots.”  
Lou fills her mouth with burning liquor. She swallows and hisses as she lets the glass down onto her thigh.   
“Don’t remember. I don’t remember much of the night.” 

She doesn’t intend to look up at Amita but when she does, she sees the woman giving her a lopsided smile.   
“Yep. Wards suck.”  
The empathy catches her by surprise, much in the same way her fist had caught her and Debbie both by surprise. 

She watches Amita take a few gulps of her drink, hiss with inelegant exaggeration, and then hold out her glass expecting Lou to refill it for her. She does, regarding her quietly.   
“Have you ever been attacked?” Lou has never asked her before. Never dared.   
When the glass holds an acceptable volume, Amita indicates as such and then leans back with a decorous air. 

“Oh many times, certainly. It’s hard to know for sure.”  
Lou looks at her, feeling again that shame at having never taken the time, never making the effort, to get to know her.   
Amita reads her perfectly. “You’ve never asked me about my past.”  
Lou is silent, biting her lip.   
“Anything else you’d like to know?” Amita asks, over the edge of her glass. 

Lou thumbs the decorative texture cut into the glass. “How did you survive? To maturity I mean.”  
Amita is silent. There is an expression on her face Lou cannot decipher. It makes her nervous, so she just talks more. 

“Obviously, you weren’t an idiot like me.”  
“You’re not an idiot, Lou.”  
“You are still so damn young. If Nine Ball hadn’t turned you, you’d still be alive as a mortal today. Assuming you lived a healthy life.”

Lou hates being told how young she is, but hearing it from Amita now, it strikes her that she is, in many ways, still perceiving the city, and everything in it, as a mortal.  
“You’re not reckless because you’re an idiot. You’re reckless because you’re a mortal who knows she will live forever. You just do not see yourself as truly eternal. Not yet. Half the reason people get themselves killed before they reach maturity is their minds just fail to grasp the concept of living for an eternity. Your every action will have consequences, and you will live with those consequences, see the ramifications ripple out day after day, year after year, century after century.”

Amita turns the glass in her hand, watching the light refract. “Mortals have the luxury of making decisions knowing eventually they will die and whatever happens after that will no longer concern them. When we make decisions, we face the consequences endlessly. Seemingly innocuous choices...A century later, two centuries later...they come back to bite you.”

“So, what, you’re all weighed down by a sense of responsibility?” Lou takes a sip of her drink.  
“No. We’re just more aware of cause and effect. A nudge here. A push there. A whisper. A kiss. A lie. Debbie Ocean hasn’t turned a single mortal in all her years. She tells people it’s because she doesn’t want the responsibility of looking after them. Really...” Amita pauses to take a drink. “It’s because she doesn’t want to contribute to the variables she has to contend with.”

Lou has always been in awe of the way Debbie thinks. That she always seems several steps ahead. The way she can walk into a room and, at a glance, know exactly where to put herself to get what she wants. She knows that she is locked in some kind of battle of wits with Claude Becker. She fears, however, that perhaps the woman has met her match. Possibly even her better. 

“Are you saying she would have let me die?”   
Amita tilts her head. “Debbie,” she says firmly, “Would never have let those men force you to keep drinking.”  
Something ticks in Lou’s head. A tiny knock to the inside of her skull. She is staring at Amita until she sees a realization dawning on her face. The woman lifts a finger to her chin, curled under her bottom lip. 

“Ah,” she says. “Leslie did tell me that you don’t remember.”  
If Lou’s heart could beat it would be thudding in her chest. “Remember what?”  
“Lou...” Amita sighs, as though she had an idea of what she was going to say but changes her mind. “Honey. You were drunk. Blind drunk.”  
She was drunk. But she remembers. She remembers drinking. She remembers the way they passed her around. She remembers dying. “No. I remember it.” She remembers being on Nine Ball’s bed. Taking that first frantic gasp of air as she willed her body to move. 

“I remember...”  
“You didn’t remember, though. Leslie had to tell you.”  
Lou shakes her head. “No. I see it!” She jabs at her temple.   
“You see what you imagined the first time Leslie told you what happened to you. Lou, you were scared. Confused. You had no idea what had happened to you.”  
“Are you saying she lied to me?” Lou looks towards the archway that leads to the foyer. She wants to run to Nine Ball. 

“She didn’t lie to you, honey. She just...omitted some details.”  
Lou’s voice strains. “Like what?”  
“You’ll have to ask her.”

A stupid decision she made some forty years ago, and her life is still spiralling out of control. Leslie, _“It’s Nine Ball”_ , holds her while she tries to breathe, to get her dead lungs to expand, her dead muscles to move, the woman holds her through it, stroking her face and telling her not to panic. It will happen. Concentrate on breathing. _“When you can breathe, then you can try moving.”_

 _“What happened...to me?”  
“I turned you.”  
_  
Lou wonders how it can be. How it can be that Debbie can remember something that happened over seven hundred years ago, in perfect detail, and she is struggling to remember something that happened only a few decades ago. 

_“You came here to be fed from. Remember? Those men got a bit too drunk...”  
“Yeah. I remember. Shit.”_  
Lou stands up. As she passes the table beside the sofa she puts her glass down and Amita grabs her wrist.   
“Where are you going?”  
“To see Nine Ball.”

“What about Debbie?”  
Lou snatches her wrist back. She’s actually surprised she’s able to pull from Amita’s grip. “Oh, fuck Debbie.”  
Amita sighs. “She’d like that.”  
Lou gives a spit of impatience and storms off to the foyer. Amita is behind her. 

“Be a bit rude to wake John at this hour.”  
“I’ll walk.”  
“You’re crazy if you think I’m letting you go on your own. After what happened.”  
“Then come with me. Escort me,” Lou says with a bow and a flourish.   
Amita pinches the bridge of her nose again. “Fine. Get dressed. Need a word with that damn Ocean anyway.” 

 

* * *

Debbie and Nine Ball both sense them at the same time. Nine Ball gives her a look, an eyebrow raised, and seems to watch and wait to see what she will do.  
“There’s a back way outa this place, right?” Debbie asks her.   
“Why is Amita with her...?” Nine Ball wonders aloud.   
“They left Tammy...?” Debbie adds.

“The house is locked,” Amita says once she reaches them. “Asher, John, and Constance are there too.”  
Lou lingers behind her, hands in the back pockets of her blue velvet pants. She won’t look Debbie in the eye.   
“No ward keeping out uninvited guests, though,” Nine Ball points out.   
“Really? Leslie?” Amita says her name and Nine Ball almost staggers against the bottle shelf. “I don’t seem to remember anyone being attacked at _my_ home.”  
Nine Ball stiffens her jaw. 

Debbie sniffs. It hits her senses so sharply her vision blurs. She turns on the stool, and even if Lou won’t look at her, she cannot help but look at Lou.   
“What happened?”  
“Zealots,” Amita tells her. There’s a sting to her tone.   
“What?” Nine Ball takes step forward behind the counter.

Amita looks up at Debbie. “We need to talk.” When Debbie looks, again, across at Lou, Amita says, “Leave her.”  
“But...”  
She is already pulling Debbie away by the arm. “Lou has her own shit to deal with right now.”  
“Shit? What?” Debbie is confused. Amita herds her into a booth on the other side of the room. Debbie angles herself to see Lou and Nine Ball, but Amita snaps her fingers in front of her face. 

“Focus, Ocean.”  
“Right.” She folds her arms on the table. “What can I do for you?”  
“First of all, I have to apologise.”  
Debbie’s eyebrow raises. “What for?”  
“I let Lou go out on her own.” In response to Debbie’s silence Amita continues. “Since you’ve been back...” For whatever reason, she cannot finish what she wants to say, slumping in her seat. 

For a while she just looks at a spot on the table in front of her and Debbie remains unspeaking. Finally, she looks up.   
“The people I’ve turned...they haven’t survived.” Amita sucks on her lip for a moment. “It’s hard...keeping them safe. Eventually, I slip up. They get themselves killed. I don’t try anymore. I find someone I like, someone I can love, and I love them briefly. In a lot of ways, it’s easier to keep a mortal from danger. They don’t have the same recklessness, don’t pose the same target as a juvenile.”

“Debbie, when I said it was hard while you were gone, I didn’t say that lightly. If I didn’t have Leslie...Shit, even John went out of his mind trying to keep Lou safe. Sometimes we’d just....send her to stay with Daphne. Just to...” She sighs. “What I’m trying to say is, when you came back, we thought we could relax. Just a little. When Lou went out tonight, they could sense it. That no one strong enough, who gave a fuck about her, was around. I-”

“Stop,” Debbie says.  
Amita holds her tongue. Debbie sees the quick movements of her eyes, trying to decipher her expression.   
“Dammit, don’t ever apologise to me. Ever.” Debbie notices Lou leaving with Nine Ball through the VIP curtain. “You’re the only reason any of us are still here.”

Her friend is suddenly quiet. She calls her a friend. She has no word that adequately encapsulates everything Amita is to her, and so she calls her a friend.   
“Maybe everyone you turned didn’t make it. But remember. When you took me in I hadn’t reached maturity either. I’m here today because of you.” Debbie says.

She found her way, somehow, out of the chaos and through the city, running, scurrying in the shadows with the rats. They had a network. Secret hideaways in which she would spend the nights, making her way from place to place until finally, finally catching Amita’s scent among thousands. Amita’s manor was nothing like DeVita’s. Both large and both old, but where DeVita’s pale stone walls pulsed with a deathly hunger, the grey brick of Amita’s home welcomed her like a giant guardian. She didn’t even need to knock on the door. It opened as she approached. And Amita took her inside. 

“You’ve known me since I was mortal and Guillermo would...” She has needed to say this for a long time. “You were the only one who never hurt me. You knew what I’d been through. I was damaged. I was going to be trouble. I was still a century from maturity and you were in the running for a seat on the Council. They all knew I was DeVita’s. There were rumours he survived that raid.”

“Rumours.” Amita says it the way she always says it. She needs Debbie to believe that he’s dead. To stop being afraid that the next corner she turns, he’ll be standing there, waiting for her.   
“That he escaped into the woods...” Debbie smiles, knowing it’s ridiculous, but shudders, because knowing, believing, doubting, it doesn’t stop her being afraid.   
“No one can survive in the woods,” Amita insists. “No one.”

“I ruined everything for you,” Debbie says.   
“You give yourself far too much credit.”  
“So I can take a little credit.”  
“That’s...you’re so infuriating.”

* * *

Lou walks into the room, standing where she can inspect the contents of the specimen jars while Nine Ball lingers by the curtain. She tries to listen for Debbie’s voice, but there are too many other voices, and hers is swallowed by shouts and laughter. She wonders if Debbie can hear her.   
“I’m glad you’re okay.”

Lou doesn’t turn around right away. She continues to examine the contents of the jars, filled with buds, grass, dried leaves, roots, river water, other oddities.   
“Yeah.” Lou doesn’t really have anything to say about the attack. So many people have tried to kill her. 

She knows her response has made Nine Ball nervous.   
“So you wanted to talk?” Nine Ball moves closer to the bed.   
Lou turns around then, nodding. “I want you to talk.”  
“Okay. What about?” She sits down on the end of the bed on her hip, facing Lou.   
“My death.”

Nine Ball frowns, confused.   
Lou clarifies with a huff of impatience. “Here. At your bar.”  
At this Nine Ball shifts uncomfortably.   
“I want to know what really happened.”

“They were drunk,” Nine Ball begins cautiously. “They didn’t know they were killing you.”  
“No I’ve heard that story. I want the truth.”  
“That is the truth.”  
“Not according to Amita.”

A frown forms on the woman’s face. “What did she say?”  
“She just pointed out that those men were as drunk as they were because _I_ was that drunk. That’s how it works, isn’t it? You kept telling me that story. I started to think I was remembering it, but that wasn’t what was happening. I was starting to create memories that conformed to your story!” She slams her hand on the station counter behind her. Nine Ball jumps at the sound.

Lou takes a step towards her and Nine Ball flinches back. “I want to know what really happened. You’re going to tell me. Now.”  
“Lou...”  
“You’ve obviously discussed it with Amita. She knows what really happened to me. I should know! It’s my death and I should know how it happened!”

“Okay!” Nine Ball’s hands go up. “Okay.”  
Lou straightens, backing off.   
“I gotta warn you.” Nine Ball is looking at her as though she has lost a long and fierce battle. “I don’t come out well in this story. At all.”  
“Let me hear it and I’ll be the judge,” Lou tells her, folding her arms.   
Nine Ball draws in a deep breath and sighs. “The man who selected you, he took you to the VIP lounge. The moment that man introduced you to his friends...you wanted to leave. You told him you changed your mind. I could hear you from the counter. He told you to stay for one drink. His shout.”

Nothing Nine Ball says is familiar. These lines. These passages. She has never heard them before.  
“You agreed to the drink. But when you finished they wanted you to stay for another. You apologised, told them you really had to go. But they convince you to stay for just one more drink.” Nine Ball shakes her head. “I knew what they were doing to you. I could have stopped them. I could have made them let you leave.”

It takes a moment for Lou to realize Nine Ball has stopped talking and is now just staring, her eyes gleaming, begging her to let her stop there.   
“Keep going.”  
Nine Ball swallows hard. Her fingers curl into the bed sheet, gripping shakily. “Uh...okay.” She looks down at the simple patterns, wrinkled under her hand, as if to get her bearings. “Thing is...there weren’t any laws to protect mortals back then. Not like they have today. They had every right to...”

“To what?”  
Nine Ball flinches at Lou’s uncaring prodding. She takes a few quick breaths. “They made you keep drinking. The man who...he took your hand. Kept threatening to break your fingers if you didn’t drink.” Nine Ball cringes, clearly remembering every detail, as though she can see it happening again in her mind. She looks up at Lou, desperately. “You gotta understand. Before Debbie invested, I was struggling to keep the place running. If I interfered...they could have made things hard, harder, for me.”

Lou keeps her features hard, and Nine Ball understands that her silence means she wants her to go on with the story.   
“It got to the point where they had to hold you. They forced your jaw open, poured the spirits into your mouth, then sealed it shut with a hand, and pinched your nose to force you to swallow.” Nine Ball turns away from Lou, sitting miserably on the end of the bed, and lets her gaze fall into her lap. “You cried. Begged. Begged them to let you go. And they did. But...by that time you were so drunk that you could barely walk. You made it from the VIP lounge to the bar counter. You fell and...you started crawling. That’s when I should have done something. But he came for you and just picked you up off the floor, carried you back. It was just a test. A test to see how drunk you really were.”

Seconds tick by. Lou cannot form a single thought.   
“You know the rest.” Nine Ball opens and closes a palm on her lap. “You died because I’m a coward. I turned you because I felt guilty. And I lost the bar anyway.”  
Lou begins taking slow steps. She sits down on the side edge of the bed, facing the station, away from Nine Ball. 

She slides her hand back across the bed, reaching behind her. After a moment she feels Nine Ball’s hand over hers. Another moment later, she feels her clutching tightly. 

 

* * *

Debbie’s lips rub together grimly. “I was a lot to handle.”  
“You still are.”  
“I don’t know how you kept forgiving me. The things I’ve done. After everything you did for me.”  
“We all struggle with our nature, Deb. It’s not a justification, but it’s an explanation. We’ve both done horrible, terrible things. Nothing justifies committing atrocities. But we have our reasons.” 

“Are you trying to tell me you understand that I have my reasons for letting Claude get his hands on Tammy?” Debbie asks.   
She looks up at Debbie. “You think that’s what I’m mad about?”   
“It’s not?”  
Amita narrows her eyes and leans forward. “You told Lou to look after Tammy. You told her to keep Tammy safe, make sure no one made her uncomfortable. And you used Daphne to distract her so you could whisk Tammy away. On her watch.” She jabs a finger down on the table. “You know Lou can’t reject a request from the Duchess. Not in public. You made her feel like she failed Tammy. And this zealot attack only makes that feeling worse. She has it hard enough as it is without you making her feel like a liability.”

Debbie swallows and dreads asking. “...Was Tammy hurt?”  
“Let’s just say she came out better against a pair of assassins than she did against Claude Becker.”  
She feels her heart twist. “I just want to know if she’s okay...”  
Hearing the regret in her voice, Amita softens. “She put herself between them and Lou. They gave her a dose of toxin and focussed on their target.”

Debbie bites her top lip.  
“She’s fine, Deb. She’s sleeping it off.”  
“Who were they?” Debbie asks.   
“No.” Amita sits back against the cushion. “You’re not going after them.”  
“I am. I don’t care if Lou doesn’t want to see me. I’m gonna get a big whiff off her and track those fuckers down.”

Amita’s lips thin incredulously. “You wanna try and get past me?”  
Debbie catches herself pouting in frustration. She scratches a fingernail into the grain of the table. “You’re not going to let me see her?”  
“Not until she wants to see you.”  
“....And Tammy?”  
“Pretty keen to see you, actually.”

Debbie swallows.   
“Do you wanna see her?” Amita asks.  
Debbie doesn’t think she should. The longer she can keep Tammy out of Claude’s mind, the better. If she came back to him smelling of her, he’d get ideas.  
“No.”

Amita raises an eyebrow, but far from surprised she looks impressed. “Well I’m not going to stop her if she tries to see you. That’s your issue.”  
They fall quiet together. Debbie tries to discern Lou’s voice from those around her. She aches to see her, for her to talk to her, for her to want to talk to her.   
“She shouldn’t see me,” Debbie says.  
“Don’t do that. Don’t break her heart.” There’s exhaustion in her voice. Debbie wonders how much it takes out of her, looking after everyone. 

“I just don’t think it’s a good idea. Not right now.”  
Amita nods. Debbie isn’t sure she understands but she respects her wish for Tammy not to see her. “I’ll try to advise her against it.”  
“Thanks. And thank Constance for me.”  
Amita stares hard at her. There’s a focus in her eyes as if she is moving pieces of a puzzle that she sees deep inside Debbie’s skull, and when they fall into place, she swears. 

“What?” Debbie asks.   
“You knew. You knew this shit would happen.”  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  
“You knew Claude would end up hurting Tammy, somehow. In some way. You knew Lou and I would get mad. You knew I’d kick you out. You knew you and Lou would be separated. Constance was your insurance. Fuck!” 

“Now who’s giving me too much credit?” Debbie says innocently.   
“You’re a fucking nightmare, Ocean.” Amita begins to shuffle along the seat and stand up from the booth. “A fucking nightmare.”  
“Love you too,” Debbie says. She smiles, because she means it.   
“Just tell me. Tell me what happens next.” Amita stands, arms folded, features stern. 

“I’d like to point out that there’s a difference between knowing for sure and planning for the worst case scenario. You think if I knew for sure Tammy would get hurt, at all, that I wouldn’t have convinced her to leave? That I wouldn’t have bared the brunt of Lou’s heartache and resentment if it meant she would stay safe? Worst case scenario, Amita. This, what’s happening now, being away from Lou and Tammy...if I knew for sure this was coming I would have got right back on that train and begged to be put back in that damned box.”

Amita just scoffs. “And I’d like to point out that answer was evasive at best, and more bullshit at worst.”  
Debbie trains her features not to react. Amita’s eyes are cold.   
“I better take Lou home,” she says. “And don’t worry. I’ll keep Tammy away from you. She’s been hurt enough.”

* * *

The car pulls to a stop and Tammy gazes up through the window at the cream stone facade of the inner city manse. There’s a desperate exhalation of breath beside her and when she turns her head, John has his lips pressed firmly together like he might burst.   
“Is there any way, any way at all, I can convince you not to go in there?” he asks.   
“I told you. This is my only chance.”

“Do you know what they’ll do to me if he hurts you? Kills you?! I’ll be ripped apart and flung savagely in all directions. Debbie will punch through my chest, take out my still beating heart,” he slowly presents his cupped hand to her in demonstration, “And then squeeze it like jam from a donut. I say heart. We all know she’d go for my genitals.”  
Tammy reaches out her hands and cups his face. “I won’t let her. Okay?”

John takes a bracing breath. He holds her wrists. “Please don’t go in there. Please. It’s not about my balls, okay. It’s not about what Debbie and Amita, what Lou will do to me. I don’t want to lose you. Please.”  
Tammy just kisses his brow. “Your balls and I will be safe. I promise.” She eases back and he, reluctantly, releases her. “Wait here for me.” She gets out of the car and lets the door swing shut behind her. She can see him rocking back and forth behind the wheel, muttering a mantra of doom. 

As she heads up the steps to the front door, she isn’t at all surprised that it opens before she can even knock, though it still makes her catch her breath. Between two large, black hounds, Claude stands there eyeing her with a look of surprise and delight. Tammy pauses before the threshold. She remembers her manners.   
“May I come in?”  
He waves his hounds away and steps aside, welcoming her in.


	16. Chapter 16

Tammy walks into a large high ceiling hallway. At the end are stairs that turn on a small landing to the right and continue up and out of sight. The hounds each waddle through one of two archways on the eastern wall, tails swinging. Tammy feels herself begin to tremble. The bruising on her neck starts to throb. 

“I must say,” Claude says from behind her. Tammy gasps and spins to face him. He grins at that. “I never expected a visit from you.”  
Tammy gazes up at him, but her mouth simply stammers uselessly. Claude holds out an arm towards the archway. “Shall we?”

He all but puts an arm around her, guiding her into the next room. It is extravagantly decorated, with large rugs, a deep red lounge suite and a long dining table beneath an imposing chandelier. The hounds are curled up in front of a flickering fire. 

She hears a chink of glass behind her. She turns to see Claude pouring thick dark blood into a wine glass at a cabinet stocked with spirits.  
He comes towards her, taking an elegant sip. “So, little mortal. What brings you here?”  
Tammy feels her jaw start to chatter. She knows he can hear her heart racing. But she is determined. She may not get another chance.

He takes another step towards her and she, instinctively, takes a step back from him. She knows she shouldn’t have, and the way he looks at her, the slight cock of his head, the dangerous smirk on his lips, she grimaces in anticipation.   
“I’m sorry...!” She whispers because her voice refuses to work properly.   
Claude shakes his head. “Quite alright. We are alone here, after all. We can be a little lenient.”

Tammy nods appreciatively. “Th-thank you.”  
“What can I do for you, Tammy?” His voice, and his manner, is suddenly very gentle. Tammy squares her shoulders and takes in a quick, bracing breath.   
“I know your plan.”

“Mm?” He casually sips his drink. “And what plan is that?”  
“I wasn’t a gift for Debbie. I was a gift for Lou.”  
It dawns on him that if she knows that much that she knows exactly how he wanted it all to play out. His eyes glint darkly. “Did Debbie tell you this?”  
“I worked it out for myself.”

“I see.” He takes another sip of his drink, looks briefly at the floor, and then begins to walk past her, turning, and leaning against the back of the sofa with his arms folded and his wine glass perfectly balanced in his fingers.   
“I’m...relieved, actually,” Tammy says, turning to face him. She weaves her fingers nervously together.   
“Oh?”

“Lou...she’s so kind. Gentle. But Debbie...” She gulps because her mouth is dry. “She scares me.”  
Claude huffs and there’s a small smile of pride on his face.   
“I know you were using me to lure Lou away from Debbie. That’s what I want too. I want to be with Lou. I love her...I know she loves me.”

“Touching,” Claude says, lifting his drink to her and then taking a sip.   
“I think I can convince Lou to see Debbie for the monster she is.”  
Claude’s eyebrows rise high on his head. “Oh really? And how will you do that?”  
“She doesn’t know what Debbie did to be exiled. No one does. No one but Debbie herself...and you.”

He looks at her hard for a moment and then looks down at his shiny black shoes, laughing through his teeth. “Oh dear.”  
Tammy bites her lips and takes in a deep breath through her nose to refresh her resolve.   
Claude looks up at the wall. “You want me to tell you Debbie’s crime?”  
“So I can tell Lou.”  
Claude laughs again. 

“It must be terrible, Debbie’s crime,” Tammy says, still fidgeting with her fingers. “For a mortal sympathiser like Lou Miller, unforgivable. But she doesn’t know the details. So it’s easy for her to see past it. If she knew the exact details of the crime Debbie committed...”  
Claude has started to chuckle, more and more amused. It sets Tammy’s heart racing faster, pounding harder. 

“Ah. But Debbie has sworn me to secrecy,” Claude says.   
“You’re a man of your word?” The moment the question is out of her mouth she knows it was the wrong thing to say. She can see his jaw tense, his eyes narrow. They freeze her to the spot. One of his hounds seems to sense his anger, and rises from the rug, padding around the sofa to his side. Claude reaches down and scratches the animal behind the ear. But he still glares at her.

“I would be taking a huge risk telling you,” he says. “Debbie has made her terms very clear to me.”  
Tammy palms begin sweating. Claude suddenly pushes off the sofa and starts to walk towards her. 

“If I tell you.”   
Tammy stands her ground, letting him approach, letting him reach out and tuck her hair behind her ear.   
“She will probably kill you.”  
“Then,” Tammy swallows. “That will definitely drive Debbie and Lou apart.”  
Claude nods. “That’s true. But what do you get out of it?”

“I love Lou. I want her to be happy. I want her to be safe. She’s not safe around Debbie.”  
Claude notices the mark he left on her neck. Tammy wills herself to stay still, not to cower away from his touch, but when he grabs her hair she lets out a small cry. He slowly tugs her head to the other side, exposing the bruising on her neck, fading now thanks to the balm Leslie prepared for her. She realizes he can smell it. 

“Been to that witch have you?”  
He touches her bruise with his thumb, pressing against it. Tammy shuffles awkwardly on her feet. “Ah. Ah...”   
He presses harder, enjoying the noises she makes, her pain, her distress. Tammy bites down to endure it. 

“I think I will tell you. Debbie won’t expect it. And our little game is becoming stale.” Claude smoothes his large hands down her face and cups her jaw, tilting her face up so that he can inspect her more critically. She is shivering, and he can feel it. “You might like to sit down.”

Claude is already returning to collect his wine glass. Tammy follows and stands behind one of the dining chairs. He gives a small hiccup of amusement.   
“Sure you wouldn’t prefer something more comfortable?”  
“Here is fine.” Tammy pulls out the chair and sits.   
“Very well.” Claude looks into his drink and then finishes it off, drawing his sleeve across his mouth. “Five years ago, your precious Lou came to my door. Apparently she and Debbie had a lover’s tiff. She was convinced Debbie was hiding with me. I was holding a little soiree, entertaining some more influential mortals...”

 

* * * _Five years ago_ * * *

It takes everything in Lou to ask politely. “May I come in?”  
Claude scoffs. Lou hears charming chatter and delicate laughter coming from within the manse and frowns. She can smell mortals. She sniffs, trying to catch any trace of Debbie.   
“As you may have noticed, I’m in the middle of a soiree. And Debbie isn’t here.”

“I know she’ll come here eventually.”  
Maybe Claude wants to think Debbie will actually show up. Maybe he thinks that there will be better chance of that if Lou sticks around. Whatever his reasons, he steps aside and lets her through. Lou mutters a thank you and shoulders her way inside. But now that she is standing in the large hall, she doesn’t know what to do with herself. 

A woman catches sight of her through the archway. Lou looks down and turns away, feeling foolish. Claude is giving her a look up and down, frowning in disgust at her inadequate attire. “Wait upstairs. If she drops by she will sniff you out.”  
Lou doesn’t particularly want to join the party anyway. She turns, but then remembers her manners. “Thank you,” she says, her gaze downcast from him, and then she walks hurriedly to the stairs. 

The top of the stairs presents her with another long hallway, though just under half as wide. The wood panelling and dark wallpaper seem to close in on her. She walks over to a small love seat by the wall, facing a large landscape painting of the city wall and the woods beyond. It is as good a place as any to wait. With a sigh she leans back against the wall and brings her ankle up on her knee, puffing a breath that fills her cheeks. 

She is not sure for how long she is waiting before Claude comes up the stairs. Lou stands, instantly, bowing her head.  
“Hmph.” Claude acknowledges the effort she’s making, before turning to one of the doors. He opens it to reveal a small parlour. “In here.”  
She walks over to the doorway and steps in slowly. There is a game table by the corner, a small wine cabinet and a lounge suit nearby. The door shuts behind her and pain splits the back of her head. The ground comes up to meet her so suddenly she is simply dazed. 

She is aware of tugging at her limbs. She suddenly tries to struggle in panic but gets a fist across her face. She doesn’t move again. Claude finishes chain cuffing her wrists ankles together. Then he lifts her into a chair. 

“Stay,” Claude says. Lou watches him walk over to the cabinet and begin preparing a drink. She tastes blood in her mouth and as she runs her tongue over her lip, she hisses at the sting. He walks back over to her. Lou blinks up at him. Her head is pounding.   
“What are you doing?” she asks. She frowns at what looks like a glass of water in his hand. 

“The little mouse wanders willingly up to the cat. She expects the cat not to eat her?” Claude tuts at her. “You’re even more stupid than I thought.”  
Lou eyes the contents of the glass. She knows what it is. She knows what he intends to do to her. She knows there are tears forming in her eyes but she doesn’t care. She doesn’t care that Claude can see. 

“Are you going to drink this willingly or am I going to have to shove a funnel down your throat?”  
The tears begin to trickle silently down her cheeks. She listens for the door. For the sound of someone knocking, the sound of Debbie knocking on the door. He spits into the glass and then nudges the edge against her chin. Lou frets, keeping her lips tightly shut. 

“You have to the count of three. One, two...”  
If she weren’t such a coward she would beg him to just put a silver blade through her heart. Because she knows what he will ask her to do. She can tell herself it’s because she has hope that she opens her lips. That Debbie will come just in time. That she will come and she can tell her she’s sorry and that she didn’t mean all those things she said. Claude tilts the glass and the contents pour onto her tongue.   
“Swallow.”  
She thinks of Debbie. She thinks of Debbie and cries.   
“Swallow it.”

One mouthful is all it takes. She cannot move of her own will.   
“Keep drinking.”   
She obeys him.  
“Good girl.”  
She drinks until there is nothing left and Claude drags the back of her finger across her lips and chin. He looks down at her, as though contemplating all the things he could command her to do. With a small scoff he crouches down, uncuffing her. 

“Now. I’m going to head out. When you hear the front door close I want you to count to ten. Then I want you to take this knife, go downstairs...” He places a knife on her lap. “And kill every single mortal at the party.”  
Lou wants to scream. A few strangled coughs and croaks gurgle their way up her throat. It’s all she has the strength to do. Claude is walking out of the room. Tears stain her cheeks. Claude doesn’t even announce that he is leaving the manse. She hears the door open, and then it closes again, and her body takes over. Her hand grips around the knife and she stands from the chair. 

“One....Two...Three...” She wants to call for Debbie, but she continues to count. “Seven...E...Ei...ght.” Her vision blurs. She isn’t strong enough to resist. She isn’t strong enough. She’s never strong enough. “Ten.” She is heading down the stairs. Her feet take her, against her will, from the main hall and through the archway.

The room is filled with elegantly dressed men and women, chatting together in small circles, lounging in front of the fire, gathered in the small kitchen, and her body doesn’t hesitate. Her arm extends, and the blade disappears through the eye of a man leaning back against the kitchen counter. The man he was chatting with has no time to react. The blade comes out with a spurt of blood, and across his neck. 

Lou continues to make her way through the people in the kitchen. She grabs a woman by her hair, reaches around and plunges the blade into her heart, rips it out, and casts her aside. She has killed five people before the rest of the guests realize what is happening. All at once there are screams. Clamouring. Commotion. 

She cuts each scream short. Blood gushes, trickles, oozes out of them as they crawl or twitch at her feet. Some of them come at her, trying to stop her. But they are mortal. For once, she is too strong. A man swings a fire poker at her. She grabs it, catching it as though he had struck a stone wall, the way Debbie had caught her fist those few years ago. She pulls him towards her, and the blade goes through his neck and out the other side. 

They collect desperately at the door. But their numbers are falling. She picks them off from the back, plucking them in one hand, slicing their necks open with the other. The last one is on her back, scrambling against the door, her feet slipping in the blood. Lou simply kneels down and just as the woman begs, Lou thrusts the knife through her skull. She leaves it there.

Her task is done and she has no further orders.   
All she can do is wait.

* * *

Tammy’s hand covers her mouth. She looks up at Claude, eyes burning, guts twisting, hatred spewing from between her fingers. She wants to tell him he’s a monster. But she swallows it down.   
“You...bastard.”  
Tammy turns with a gasp in the chair. Debbie, eyes dark and flickering, stands under the archway.  
“You gave me your word, Claude.”

Her gaze dips downward, piercing through Tammy with hopeless pain and betrayal. Tammy can see that she wants to know why. She wants to know how. But she cannot form the words, utterly devastated by what she has done. Debbie looks back up at Claude. 

“Why?” There is almost no tone to her voice at all. There are hot, unshed tears in her eyes.   
“What’s the matter, Deb.” Claude resettles his folded arms across his chest. “Don’t you trust Tammy?”  
“I thought I could trust you,” Debbie says.   
“I haven’t harmed Lou.”  
“This harms Lou.” Although her voice is quiet, restrained, Tammy hears it rattling like chains. “The more people who know, the more it risks getting out.”

“Thrilling, isn’t it.” Claude grins at her.   
Debbie puts a hand to her brow, her eyes closing. Tammy, still shivering, watches her take a number of deep breaths. When she finally looks back at her, there’s a sadness in her eyes so deep, Tammy herself feels tears spring in her own eyes. 

Debbie holds out her hand. Tammy blinks at it. Her body refuses to react. Debbie gives her wrist an encouraging flick, waving her over. “Come on. Come here.”  
Tammy rises slowly from the chair. Her legs feel weak as she makes her way over to her. Debbie reaches for her shoulders, drawing her close, sweeping her fingers through her hair and holding her face. 

“I’m sorry.”  
Before Tammy can comprehend what she means, there is a hand around her throat. It begins to crush her larynx.   
“I’m sorry...” Debbie whispers, closing her eyes.   
Tammy claws desperately, trying to pry the fingers from around her neck. She kicks, at the floor, at Debbie’s knees, unable even to make a sound. She struggles, frantically, uselessly, in silence. 

Then she falls, heavily, to the ground. She coughs, gasps, air slicing down her throat. She rolls onto her side, heaving, gagging, gulping air into her lungs.   
“I can’t do it.”  
“You really want her dead?”  
“No. I don’t want her dead. I _need_ her dead.”

Tammy’s body feels heavy and empty all at once. She tries to get up but can’t. She begins to drag herself along the floor.   
“I can give you what you need.”  
“...I know. But...”  
“Don’t worry. I’ll bleed her dry. It will look like I accidentally overfed.”  
“Just...be gentle? For me?”  
“Why don’t you go home.”  
“...It won’t be my home now.”

Her trembling fingers struggle to find strong enough purchase on the rug. It creates too much resistance trying to drag her body over it. But she knows it’s futile. She knows she will be caught. 

“Go for a walk. This won’t take long.”  
Nothing feels real. Tammy sees Debbie standing by the door, touching the doorknob. The fear that she’s always felt towards her completely and utterly takes possession of her body. Debbie leaves her. Gone. Just like that. Tammy knew she took a risk coming here. But she screams miserably, desperately, all the same.

She can sense Claude is close. He takes her shoulder and rolls her over.   
“I warned you.” He tenderly brushes golden locks from her face. Her fingers brush down the edge of her face and trace over her trembling lips while she frets, tears streaming down her cheeks. He sniffs the air, testing to see if Debbie is within sensory range. His head tilts, listening. Then he smirks and looks down at her. 

“Seems a waste to use toxin on you if you’re going to die anyway.”  
Tammy immediately tries to crawl away and a hand pounds down hard on her chest, pinning her there, cruelly, like a child toys with a insect. He bends over her, mauling into her neck and she shrieks in pain. 

The sound of him feeding on her is strangely peaceful. It wouldn’t be a terrible way to die. It would be, at least, intimate. She thinks that this man, taking her life, is giving her more respect in death, than her husband gave her in life. 

“Stop!” she says.   
Claude stops. Tammy pants, catching her breath.   
“Help me up.”  
He gets to his feet, carrying her with him, and aiding in her balance. Her legs still wobble and she clutches onto him. When she looks up into his eyes, she can see his confusion. 

Tammy pulls at the sleeve of her blouse and holds it against her neck. “Do you have a napkin or something?” She coughs, her throat still in trauma from being suffocated. “Go fetch me one.”  
Claude turns and walks to the kitchen. His eyes are blazing at her as he returns, and hands her a fresh pressed white napkin. Tammy takes it, folds it several times, and presses it to her neck. 

“Thank you.”  
His eyes glare at her in fury and increasing alarm. Tammy bends over the table, leaning on one arm, wincing. When she composes herself and turns to Claude she gives a sniff of amusement.   
“That’s right. I drugged you. Well...I drugged myself. See, I had a theory and I guess I proved it correct.”

She can see Claude clenching his jaw, willing his body to move at his own command, but it will not respond.   
“See what activates the drug is mixing it with your own bodily fluid. Then your victim can respond only to your command. I thought about how your kind can only get drunk if you feed on a mortal with spirits in their blood. So I wondered, what if I drank a shitload of whisper seed so it got into my blood.”

“Genius, really.”  
Heels clack along the hallway. She turns to greet Debbie with a quivering smile.   
“Thank you,” Tammy says.   
Debbie is smirking gently. Then she notices the wound Tammy is trying to stem. She comes closer. “Let me see.”

Tammy waves her away. “It’s fine.”  
“You’ll bleed out.”  
“Then we better do this quickly.”  
Debbie smiles. Tammy feels the gratitude pressing hard against her chest, again, making it hard for her to breathe. Debbie leaves her side and wonders into the kitchen.

She looks at Claude. “Go and get a bill of arrest. And a pen. Bring them both back here.”  
For a moment he hesitates. But the drug is too strong. He leaves the room. Tammy reaches for one of the dining chairs, light headed. Debbie quickly rushes forward, setting the glass of water, bubbling as it dissolves a seed. She helps Tammy to sit, and stands behind her, stoking her hair. “Hang in there.”

Claude reappears, in one hand a pen, and in the other a single document. Tammy pats the end of the table. “Place them here. And sit.”  
Claude puts the pen and document down on the end of the table and takes the seat in front of them. Tammy peers over the document. “Here. Crime. Write, framing Lou Miller-”   
“No.”  
Tammy grabs Claude’s arm. “Stop.”  
“I don’t want Lou associated with this. He framed me. Put my name.”  
Tammy nods. “Write, framing Debbie Ocean for the slaughter of innocent mortals by illegal use of whisper seed.”

Claude’s hand visibly shakes above the pen. When he takes it, he is spitting in an effort to resist.   
“Come on. There’s a good boy,” Tammy pats his arm encouragingly.   
“You’re enjoying this,” Debbie notes.   
“Oh very much. Now. Next section. How long should his sentence be? A thousand years? Two thousand?”

Debbie snorts. “Put down one hundred and sixty years. The years left until Lou reaches maturity.”  
“Has anyone been exiled for that long?”  
Debbie continues to stroke her hair. “Not for the murder of mortals. But for sending one of his own to exile...the sentence will be appropriate. The Council won’t question it.”  
Tammy pats his arm again. “Write one hundred and sixty years.”

The pen moves slowly and surely across the paper.   
“Now. Here.” Tammy points to the final space to be filled in. “Write Claude Becker.”  
Tammy watches the ink take shape across the page. Claude’s neat, elegant penmanship produces his name.   
“Quick. Make him drink it, now,” Debbie says.   
Tammy brings the glass closer to him. “Take this and drink it.”

As he reaches for it, Tammy feels Debbie suddenly reach under her arms and lift her away. She moves her far away from him because the moment Claude swallows he throws the glass to the floor and growls in rage. He lunges for them.

There is a burst of black smoke and black flame. Tammy falls back, held up only by Debbie’s arms. Figures emerge from the flames. They step forward, men, but not men. Their faces, formless, featureless, swirl like the smoke still filling the room. They gather around Claude.   
“No! This is a mistake! She drugged me!” 

The Agents do not care. Their only concern is what is written on the bill. Tammy watches, horrified, as they drag Claude into the flames. It shrinks, fading and fading until it burns out, and the smoke in the room dissipates.  
“Tammy.”  
Tammy shakes herself from the shock of what she has just seen. When Debbie described the Agents to her, she never pictured anything like that.  
“Baby.” Debbie indicates the blood soaked napkin. 

“Oh.”   
Debbie helps Tammy turn to face her. Tammy sways a little. “Am I too late?”  
Debbie’s lips stretch into an adoring smile. “No, baby. You’re okay.”  
Tammy sighs in relief. “But you know...You’ll be drugged too.” She knows Debbie only intends to inject her with toxin to heal her punctured artery. But even a trace amount of her blood could affect her. 

Debbie hums, an eyebrow raised. “At your mercy, hm?”  
Tammy smiles, but she is weakening. “I wouldn’t...”  
She lets Debbie sweep her hand across her brow and urge her head to the side. “I know.”

The sensation of her lips on her neck makes her moan and she feels around the woman’s back. If and when she wants to die, this was where she wants to be. Safe in Debbie’s arms. The toxin floods her veins and her arms swing limp at her sides. But Debbie holds her. Keeps her from falling. 

* * *

“We all thought you did it.” Amita joins Debbie in her room, the room she picked for herself so many years ago. “I should have known it was Claude.”  
“If you’re about to apologise...” Debbie warns. She puts down a bottle of perfume on the dresser and picks up a hair brush.  
“I wouldn’t dare,” Amita says. Standing at Debbie’s side she observes the way Debbie picks up and inspects each item on the dresser. “Are you going to do that all day?”

“It’s the first time they’ve felt like they truly belong to me.” She places a small jewellery box back down and turns to face her.  
“Really? In eight hundred years?” Amita’s tone bites incredulously.   
“ _Nearly_ eight hundred years.”  
Amita puts a hand on her arm. “Using whisper seed to make Claude confess and turn himself in. That was genius.”

Debbie just hums. “It was Tammy’s idea actually.”  
“Oh really? I was just about to say I could kiss you.”  
“All my idea. Came to me in a moment of brilliance.”  
“Mhm.”

Amita smirks at her. Debbie feels herself blush. It would actually show in her cheeks if her blood flowed.   
She clears her throat. “There’s a free seat on the Council now.”  
Amita looks at her.   
Debbie returns her gaze, failing to read her intention. “What?”  
“You should go for it.”

“What?” Debbie thinks she’s mad.  
“I told you. I have a reputation. The other members of the Council, let alone the rest of our community are not ready for views like mine. I can do more for mortals as a citizen. But you...”  
“Me. On the Council.” She scoffs incredulously. 

“You. The woman who attacked the Duchess. You know they’d go for it.”  
Debbie shakes her head, feigning insult.  
“Daphne could use an ally.” There is more behind her words than the simple suggestion that Daphne might like to see a friendly face on the Council. “Think about it.”

Amita gives her shoulder a squeeze as she turns to leave the room. Then Debbie feels lips against her cheek in a quick peck. Debbie stands stunned as Amita wordlessly leaves the room. Her fingertips hover over tingling skin. 

Lou takes up the empty space in the doorway, leaning around it before standing, like a picture in a frame.   
“So.” She walks into the room, hands on the back of her hips.   
Debbie has to catch her breath and train her features. “So.”   
“Um.” Lou looks down, scratching her head above her ear awkwardly. “Those things I said...”

“Lou...” She says her name, not to stop her, but because she is there, and she is struck by her beauty.   
“No, let me say it.”  
Debbie makes a show of sealing and biting her lips.  
Lou seems to wait until she is satisfied she won’t be interrupted. She takes a few more steps into the room, looking around at the floor, holding the back of her neck. She lets her arms swing loose and her hands clap together. She puffs air and then stares upwards, jutting her jaw. “Uhh....” Her lips come together too. Debbie notices her eyes, the soft, gentle blue, shimmer with welling tears. 

“...Was that it?” Debbie asks.  
“No, you fucking arse, shut up.”   
Debbie seals her lips again, trying not to smirk.   
Lou is sniffing and quickly dabbing the tears in her eyes with her knuckles. “Dammit...”  
Debbie crosses the room. “That was beautiful.”

Lou sniffs as she approaches and keeps wiping tears away before they fall from her eyes. “Yeah, well. I worked hard on it.” She looks down at her feet.  
Debbie nods, smiling. “I appreciate it.”  
Lou snorts and shoves her arm. In doing so her hand slides down into hers. Debbie catches and holds onto her. She finds Lou’s other hand. 

“So,” Debbie says. “Can I kiss you now?”  
Lou nods contemplatively. “I need to apologise properly.”  
Debbie strokes soft pale hair with a single finger. “Plenty of time for that.”  
Lou shuts her eyes, because she has lived for so long dreading that, at any given moment, her time would be up. Debbie takes the opportunity to tenderly steal her lips with hers, and they kiss until Lou’s hands slip free and roam down her back. 

* * *

Lou is fast asleep between them. Debbie thinks she probably hasn’t fed in days. Tammy is sitting up in bed against the pillows, gently curling her fingers in the Lou’s hair as her mind drifts.   
“Will I wake her? If we talk?” she asks.   
Debbie lies on her back. “We could roll this one onto the floor. She’d sleep through it.”

Tammy’s fingers begin to trace lovingly around Lou’s peaceful features. Amita has taken Asher to a hotel, anticipating that the three women would be up all night fucking. But Lou exhausts quickly. She had taken Constance too, only because the girl had been a little too keen to stay.   
“Lou doesn’t remember killing those people,” Tammy states.   
“No.”  
“Memory loss isn’t an effect of the drug, though.”  
“No, it isn’t.”

“How, then?”  
Debbie rests her hands on the bed sheets over her chest. “Claude found me. He brought me back to his manse. To show me. She was just standing there, drenched in blood, bodies...piled on top of each other, waiting for him. He wanted me to see that. He wanted me to see that and know she would be exiled. It would be difficult, if not impossible to prove she was under the effects of whisper seed. It was his word against Lou’s.”

Tammy is silent. Not for having nothing to say. But out of not needing to say it.   
“When he released Lou from the drug...It was like she was already exiled. I had to catch her. She just dropped. All she did was stare. I told Claude to wait before he wrote out the bill. I think he was curious to see what I would do. I used his bath to wash Lou clean, I dressed her in his clothes, and promised him I would be back.”

Debbie turns onto her side, facing Lou. Her hand reaches out and the backs of her fingers touch lightly against her cheek. “I took her to Daphne. Told her what had happened. Told her what I intended to do. I just needed Lou to forget.”  
“Debbie...” Tammy’s voice is heartbroken.

“We took Lou to the dungeons. She was still in shock. We took her into a cell and we were putting her in chains...she finally looked at me, noticed me.”

_“Debbie...I...I killed them. I killed them all.”  
“No. You didn’t.”  
“I’ll be exiled...! I’ll...”  
“No. Shhh...You won’t be exiled.”  
“Th-they’ll execute me...!”  
“No, they won’t. Baby, shhhh...Let me handle it, okay?”  
_

“Leaving her there was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. But I had to get back to Claude. I was afraid he would just fill out the bill before I got back. But he was waiting for me. I told him to write my name.”  
“And Daphne used wards on Lou to make her forget.” Tammy takes a moment. “How long was she exposed?”  
“A few days, at least. Enough to be sure. Enough to be sure she was so out of it, she wouldn’t remember Daphne’s involvement, or that there was anything she had forgotten at all.”

“And Claude has held this over you ever since?”  
“When Claude realized what I was willing to do to protect Lou, he promised that so long as I was his, he’d stop trying to kill her. But someone still had to pay for the crime. So. I was exiled.”  
She senses Tammy just staring at her. 

“She can never know,” Debbie says. She runs her fingertips around the edge of Lou’s ear. “It wasn’t her fault but...Knowing it was her hands that took all those lives...I saw what it did to her. I lost her, Tammy. Even an eternity wouldn’t be long enough for her to recover from it.”  
She hears Tammy sniff. Debbie tilts her head back a little to look up at her. 

“I didn’t want you to know,” Debbie says, “I didn’t want you looking at Lou like...”  
Tammy looks at her fiercely. “When I look at Lou, my heart bursts, because it can’t contain everything I feel for her.”  
Debbie realizes that she has done nothing to deserve Tammy. “...Mine too.”  
Tammy looks down, lovingly combing and stroking Lou’s hair. “...What happens when you look at me?”

Tammy is flicking her hair from her face in a nonchalant manner, avoiding her gaze. Debbie feels the corners of her lips tugging into an smile she can barely suppress.   
“I feel it beat.”  
Tammy doesn’t look at her. But Debbie can see that she is overwhelmed. She reaches for and takes the fingers that have fallen still in Lou’s hair. She holds them and Tammy gives a small laugh and finally looks at her, biting her lip. 

“Who knew you were such a sap?” Tammy laughs again and then bites her lips to keep quiet.   
“Better not spread that around,” Debbie warns softly.   
They share a smile, and Debbie wonders if Tammy can even know what it means to her that she went through all of this.

“It was a good plan,” Tammy says. She is resting her head back now, content to leave her fingers in Lou’s hair, and Debbie’s hand over hers.   
“You pulled it off,” Debbie says.   
Tammy just huffs. “So how early on did you figure all this out?”  
Debbie is reluctant to answer.

“Let’s just say your idea to drink whisper seed was the final piece of the puzzle,” she says.   
Tammy looks down at Lou. “Well, I got the idea from her...How she died...” She gazes at Lou for a long time. “But I only had the idea at the ball. After Claude...After you took me to Daphne’s room.” Debbie remains silent. She is simply waiting for it to dawn on her. 

“Oh.” Tammy grimaces. “It wasn’t my idea. It was your idea.” She lets her head roll back and she gives a soft laugh. “That’s why you took me to see Leslie. So I would see her using it. But it’s more than that, isn’t it?” She is looking down at Debbie again. “Because you needed me to fall in love with you. And with Lou. You just needed to wait for me to get close, to get brave enough to ask her how she died. You needed me to get to the point where I would risk my life for her. This whole time you’ve been pushing and prodding me, moving me around like board piece, putting me just where I needed to be to enact your plan.”

“I told you I had a plan, didn’t I?” Debbie asks, feeling a dread in the pit of her stomach.   
Tammy winces softly, as though in terrible pain, but doesn’t want to wake Lou. “Oh...”  
“Tammy, I’ve been around an exceptionally long time. I see patterns...I see outcomes. I lay in a box for five years thinking of how to get rid of Claude. I needed to drug him. But after what he did to Lou, he would be expecting me to do the same to him. I couldn’t just put it in his drink. I needed a mortal. Claude may have thought he had fooled Lou into thinking they both chose you at the same time. But the truth, the reality...is that I asked for you first. Because I needed you.”

Tammy is too exhausted to cry. Her eyes seem cold, without light.  
“I could have let you in on the whole plan. But...it was important that you...It was important that you didn’t know. It was important that your feelings, your fears, were genuine.” Debbie is desperate, and yet, she feels that she has already failed.   
“Let me just ask you one thing,” Tammy says, voice rasping. “Was it important for the plan that my feelings were genuine, or was it important to you?”

Debbie opens her mouth to answer, but no words come out. She hears a heartbroken whine from Tammy. She feels her hand slip away from under hers, feels the bed sheets shift as the woman slips from the bed, and across the room. Tammy leans on the window sill. When she turns Debbie is behind her and she flinches, cursing. 

“I only intended for you to fall for Lou. But...I made it complicated.”  
“Oh? How?” Tammy asks resentfully.   
“I didn’t lie to you, Tammy. I fucked it all up from the start. I fell instantly in love with you. I wanted you to run. I tried to scare you off. But Lou was already...It had to be you.”  
Tammy is cringing, turning away from her, leaning on the window sill again, spine arched, hair hanging low. 

“I really kept trying to think of another plan. But I couldn’t. It had to be you, Tammy.”   
The woman hisses a sob. 

“I’m sorry.”


	17. Chapter 17

“I remember you telling me,” Tammy says. She is still by the window, looking out. “That you needed me to believe I was just a pawn in your plot against Claude, because that would make me wary of you, and my relationship with Lou stronger.”  
“I knew the idea would cross your mind. That I might be using you. Everyone else certainly thought so, even Lou. You’re a smart woman, Tammy. Cautious. Observant. So I told you what you needed to hear, what you needed me to say,” Debbie says. 

She can see Tammy’s eyes drift shut in the reflection in the glass. “You put the thought out of my mind...”  
“I did,” Debbie admits.  
“You needed me to want to die for her...”

Debbie can see that she’s looking at the reflection of Lou’s soundly sleeping form in the reflection of the window. Tammy’s expression, her pale face and hair, her dark eyes, gives Debbie a ghostly impression. When Tammy turns to face her, it is all the more haunting.   
“You said you wanted to keep me safe. Was that just so I lived long enough to enact your plan?”

Debbie nods. “That was one reason. Yes.” She holds her hands up and pats the air. “Please don’t wake her.”  
Tammy glares at her. “Maybe I should. Maybe she needs to hear all of-”  
Debbie closes the space between them so fast that it takes Tammy a while to realize Debbie’s hand is tightly pressed over her mouth. It brings their eyes inches from each other and Debbie only has to whisper, if she had anything to say that she hadn’t already with the raw force of her gaze. 

Tammy’s eyes are filled and wide with terror. Debbie sighs, loosening her grip, and finally slips away from her. Tammy reaches behind her for the stability of the window sill, head bowed, Debbie realizes, in submission.

“Stop. Don’t. Don’t do that,” Debbie says. “Please. Stand up straight. I’m sorry.”  
Tammy looks up at her slowly, carefully. 

Debbie shuts her eyes. She tells herself it is not to avoid the meek, fearful look in Tammy’s. She draws in a breath and sighs heavily. “You need to understand,’ she says, “Claude could have changed his mind at any time. A promise isn’t a guarantee. He could have killed Lou whenever he felt like it, for any reason. He could have revealed the truth about what she’d done, and filed a retraction with the Council, stating it was Lou who committed the crime and I had insisted on going in her place.”

She keeps her voice low, soft, calm. She opens her eyes, and Tammy is still there in front of her, uncertain, one hand reaching back for the window sill, and the other risen, fingers splayed, because she anticipates the need to cower, to protect herself, in case Debbie launches at her again. 

“But he wouldn’t have stopped there. He would have gone after everyone, _everyone_ I care about. He’s always hated Nine Ball for turning Lou in the first place. I’m sure she would have been the next card he played. John...I’ve known him since he came screaming into this world. Taking him out of it would have been nothing to Claude. Amita. Rose. Daphne. Don’t think that asshole wouldn’t have found a way to get to her...”

Debbie shudders. “This is what I spent my exile thinking about. Thinking about all the ways he could have killed the people, the few people in this whole forsaken city I give a damn about. Every. Second. Picturing their deaths. And I know that whatever I imagined, it would have been so...so much worse.”

“You didn’t just do this for Lou, Tammy,” Debbie continues, “You did it for all of them. And don’t _ever_ doubt that they wouldn’t do the same for you.”

Tammy appears to shiver slightly. She turns her body towards the window, feeling for the wooden frame, not quite turning her back on Debbie, but giving herself the perceived space in which to contemplate what she is saying. 

“I would have given my life for Lou. I would have killed Claude, and dealt with the consequences, whatever they were. But her circumstances...without me she will be a target. Yes, Amita and Nine Ball could protect her. But Nine Ball has her own phobias, and Amita, well, her views on mortals aren’t exactly well received by everyone. She needs me. They need me. Cause I’m willing to be the monster. I’m the monster other monsters see and nod with approval. It’s okay, they think. Because they belong to _her_. She’s keeping an eye on them, humouring them, making sure they don’t step too far out of line.”

She can see Tammy wince at the revelation. See her trying to comprehend how she has been operating, how delicate her situation has truly been.

“Maybe when Lou is strong enough, maybe when she’s accepted amongst our kin, then I can go out in a blaze of glory. Or simply just...walk out into the woods, no longer needed. No longer necessary. But I did not have that luxury, Tammy. I came up with the best plan I could, under the circumstances. Now, hopefully Claude Becker eats his own damned heart out in that box. But if he survives it, that’s when I will make that sacrifice. I’ll meet him at the station, plunge a silver dagger through his heart, and then get right back on that train.”

“Don’t you dare.”  
Debbie is startled. The voice comes from the other end of the room, and she looks to see Lou sitting up naked in the bed, eyes glinting in the dim light.   
“Fuck, Lou.” She turns and then swallows hard. “How much did you hear?”  
“You are not leaving me again.” Lou stares at her.

Debbie looks back across at Tammy, who is also stunned to silence, nervous about how long Lou might have been awake.   
“Lou...how much did you hear?” Tammy asks this time. Debbie realizes that she is just as concerned about Lou finding out the truth. That her threat to tell her was an empty one. A threat she made because she was hurting, and she wanted Debbie to hurt. 

Lou’s eyes flick across to Tammy, glaring just as darkly. “Why does that matter? Is there something you don’t want me to know?” Her gaze moves between them.   
Debbie is relieved. Lou wouldn’t ask if she hadn’t heard her mention that there was a truth to know. She is both afraid and curious as to what Tammy will say, what she will do. It prevents her from speaking, taking action. 

Lou is still sitting there in the dark, eyes narrow, waiting for either of them to respond. Tammy’s mouth hangs open. Whatever she wants to say is balanced, precariously, on the edge of her lip. She glances at Debbie, for permission, for instruction, but Debbie stays quiet. She wants to hear this.

“I was afraid,” Tammy says. She walks back to the bed, and eases down onto the mattress. She begins to pick anxiously at her fingers. “And for a moment I didn’t want to acknowledge the choices I made. The choices you let me make. Because it hit me, all of a sudden, the risk I took taking on Claude Becker and I was afraid I’d been used.”

Lou is still frowning, but the hard edge to her eyes has softened, taking on a curious quality. Debbie too, feels herself drawn closer, and at the same time repelled, as though the space, the room itself is guarding against her. That Tammy and Lou are sharing something that she has no right to intrude upon. 

“But if I believe that then I’m saying...that your love is a trick. And that...only through deception could anyone...could a mortal like me fall in love with you.” Tammy wilts shamefully. Lou bites her lip, paining at the admission. Tammy tries to say she’s sorry, but Lou doesn’t let her. She cups her face and places her thumbs over her lips.

She leans forward and, moving her thumbs aside, presses her lips to Tammy’s. Debbie watches the women rest their brows against one another. She can move now and she approaches the bed. Lou looks up at her, still holding Tammy’s face in her hands. She has to swallow before her voice will work.   
“If you leave...”  
Debbie smiles and sits on the edge of the bed. “I’m not going anywhere.”  
Lou reaches out her hand and Debbie meets it with her own, holding it on the bed. It’s a promise. And so is the look in Tammy’s eyes. 

 

* * *

Tammy sits on the stone bench in the courtyard overlooking the moors. There is a hound sleeping beneath her, and another resting his head on her knee, tail thumping the gravel as his ears receive tenderly given scratches. The sleeping hound flicks his ears and raises his head, giving a low growl.   
“You’re back,” Tammy says.  
“You know these mutts are ruining my fun.”

“I don’t need Failinis to know when you’re behind me, Debbie Ocean.”  
Debbie smirks. She’s not sure even Tammy believes that, but she will go along with it. She walks up to the bench as Failinis rests his head back down between his paws. Evidentially he has decided it is okay for her to approach. Debbie slowly sits down beside Tammy. She can hear her heart beginning to race already. 

“They’ve really taken to you.”  
“They still won’t let Lou near me.” Tammy smoothes her hand across the dog’s head and he blinks heavily.   
“It’s not easy to overcome years of conditioning. But you’ll help them.”  
Tammy is nodding, but she’s not really thinking about the dogs.

“So. How was the Council meeting?” she asks, pretending that it hasn’t been on her mind all day.   
“Oh. Good,” Debbie puts her hands together on her lap and looks out across the landscape. “Voted on the Hunting Ring regulations. Law passed. No more cheating people out of contracts. They all have to go through a new Hunting Ring Committee Board.”  
“Oh,” Tammy pouts, nodding with interest. “That protects Constance, too, right?”  
“It should. She’ll get paid through the Committee instead of through the Ring owner.”

The dog on her knee can sense Tammy’s apprehension and begins to whine, its large wet black eyes gazing anxiously at Debbie.   
“Anything else?” Tammy asks.   
Debbie turns her head to look at her. She is enjoying her apprehension. Tammy bites her lip and, for five whole seconds, is able to keep it together. But she can’t read the expression on Debbie’s face and she cracks. 

“Just tell me...”  
Debbie feels her long dead heart swell. She nods.   
Tammy’s eyes twinkle. The corners of her mouth stretch into a cautious smile.   
Debbie keeps nodding. “Application approved.”  
She feels the air that Tammy sucks into her lungs. “Approved...?”  
Debbie smiles. “Approved.”

She lets Tammy take as long as she needs for the news to sink in, and for her to catch her breath. “So...What happens next? I mean...how does it work?”  
“Well,” Debbie says, feeling her hands down over her knees and turning her shoulders back. “Whenever you’re ready, we can go ahead.”  
“...Just like that?”  
“Just like that.”

Tammy lets out a breath and laughs nervously. Debbie turns to her, compelled to stroke her hair and tuck it behind her ear. “Are you sure you want this?”  
Tammy is caught in her gaze. She can only nod. 

* * *

The blend of spirits and fragrant plants and whatever Nine Ball keeps in all her jars is not altogether unpleasant. Debbie sniffs and contemplates on the notion Nine Ball has gone to some special effort to make things absolutely perfect for the occasion.  
“Did you redecorate?” Amita asks.  
“I got a new curtain,” Nine Ball says, straightening the bed sheet and fluffing the pillow. Amita turns to inspects it, head at an appreciative angle.   
“Is that what it is?”

“Well, it makes all the difference,” Debbie agrees. “Lights up the whole room.”  
Nine Ball jabs a fist to her gut as she walks past and Debbie coughs.   
“I like it,” Tammy says, and Nine Ball shrugs, pretending not to care about her opinion.   
“It’s nothing.”  
“Are those new bed sheets?” Lou asks. Debbie arches an eyebrow. Of course Lou would notice.

“No. Shut up.” Nine Ball frowns. Debbie shares a look with Tammy who is trying to hide how flattered she is that Nine Ball has gone to so much trouble for her, and doesn’t want them to know it. Debbie comes to stand close to her, taking her hand.   
“You know I’ve never turned anyone before,” Debbie says to ease the tension.  
“Well, I’ve never been turned before, so...” Her heart is pounding. They can all hear it.

She knows it will be an ordeal and they ache for her. Lou comes up behind her, slipping her hands over her shoulders and nuzzling into her hair. “Are you sure you want this?” she asks gently.

Tammy bites her lips and nods. She tries to smile but her eyes fill almost instantly with tears. “I’m just afraid.”  
“Totally understandable,” Amita says.  
“We’ll be with you. The whole time.” Debbie tilts her head and kisses her just above her eye. “All of us.  
“We won’t leave you,” Lou says. She combs her fingers through Tammy’s hair. 

Tammy takes in a deep breath. She looks up at Debbie. “I’m ready.”  
As Debbie leads her to the bed, Lou holds her for as long as the length of her arm and extended fingers will allow. Tammy sits on the edge of the bed and Debbie strokes her hair and face, placing a finger beneath her chin to make her look up.   
“Do you still want this? I want you to be sure.”

Tammy nods. “I’m sure.”  
Debbie urges her to lie back, to rest her head on the pillow. Lou crawls onto the bed from the other side, sitting close to her, and taking her hand. Debbie sits on the edge of the bed, facing Tammy and brushing her hair, sweeping it, lovingly, from her neck. She leans in close. 

“Do you understand what it means?...To live through your own death?” she whispers. She wants Tammy to know that once she starts, once she is affected by the toxin, she may not be able to let them know she has changed her mind.   
She feels Tammy’s fingers petting at her shirt, tugging gently at the fabric.   
“I want this,” she says with a shaking breath. “I want you...” Her eyes hold them both in turn. Lou brings Tammy’s hands up to her lips and kisses them softly with a smile. 

Debbie leans over her. She slips her hand under the back of Tammy’s neck, lifting her slightly to meet her teeth. The woman lets out a small whimper as her skin breaks, and Debbie’s mouth fills with blood. She cannot help but indulge in her taste, in the feeling of holding her, and receiving from her. 

She can sense Nine Ball and Amita standing close by. They wouldn’t be anywhere else. Turning was brutal and cruel in their day. Debbie’s, too, was especially barbaric. But it didn’t have to be that way for Tammy. She wouldn’t have to go through it alone. 

Debbie feels a hand on her back.   
She hears Amita’s voice. “She’s close, Deb.”  
Debbie carefully licks the wounds and leans back. Tammy’s expression is peaceful. Her breath tranquil. Debbie caresses her face.   
“Last chance.” Her finger trails lightly down her cheek. “I can stop. Let you recover.”  
Tammy makes a sound, a small, toneless sound. 

“Blink for me if you want me to keep going.”  
Tammy’s eyes drift shut slowly, and then open. Debbie huffs and smiles. She leans over, taking her neck to her lips and pierces her wounds open with her teeth. She feeds till there is not enough to sustain her. 

Lou watches intently, keeping a warm smile against Tammy’s fingers. Amita passes Debbie a blade and she holds its sharp edge to her palm, carving deep. She scoops her other hand under Tammy’s neck and holds her dripping palm above her mouth. They don’t expect her to have the strength to swallow. It will travel down her throat nonetheless. It will make its way slowly through her body, changing it, corrupting it.

Tammy begins to choke. Her eyes widen, and they see her panic. Lou leans in closer, reaching her hand to sweep her brow.   
“It’s okay. It’s okay.”  
Debbie thought she would be able to tell Tammy what was happening to her. To be able to spare her the terror of not knowing, or what to expect, but she is watching her die, watching her feel every moment of her death and she is assaulted by memories. 

She feels Amita is beside her. Her hand firmly against her back. She feels it in her hair, calming her, offering her the comfort she has given since the days Debbie was a frightened mortal, and holding the sobbing woman was all she had the power to do. But Tammy needs her. She’s struggling for the breath that her dying body can no longer take and Debbie knows the pain and the fear is worse than she ever anticipated. 

Debbie places her hand against the edge of Tammy’s face. A moment later she is completely still. But that does not mean she does not feel her, does not sense her, does not see her. So she tells her. Tells her that she will feel the life in her body ending, feel all her mortal systems cease. She will feel Debbie’s blood within her spread to every cell and remake it.

She tells her it will take time, but that they won’t leave her, and they will keep talking to her. Debbie sees in Tammy’s eyes that she never expected it to be this painful. But she sees, too, that she is grateful they are close, and that she wants them closer. Lou is caressing her brow, because she knows that the sensation is a distraction, however small. Debbie takes one of Tammy’s hands and cocoons it within her own. 

Even if someone had been with her, someone who loved her, they would not have been able to do the same for Debbie. She holds Tammy’s hand and looks for Amita. There’s a tone to her eyes telling her that she’s okay. When Tammy asked Amita to be present for this, it was without knowing just how much Debbie would need her too.

Their positions shift through the hours. A moment brings the four eternal women together on the bed, Amita sitting against the headboard with Tammy’s head in her lap, Lou by Tammy’s side still clasping her hand and Nine Ball beside her, who knows the trauma is still fresh for Lou as well, and perhaps feels that she wishes she could have done more for her. But Debbie knows that there is nothing to be done to change the way they become what they are. The fact that Lou had Nine Ball with her at all was a mercy Debbie could only have wished for, and that wish went callously unanswered. 

She watches the way Amita is holding Tammy, the way her fingers comb through her hair. Amita catches her staring and smiles. Debbie doesn’t know what she would have done without her, what those years could have been. 

More hours pass. Nine Ball lies with her legs up against the wall, tossing and catching a ginger root. Amita continues to cradle Tammy in her lap. Lou has never let go of Tammy’s hand.   
“Deb.”  
Debbie flicks her gaze up at Amita’s voice. The woman nods downwards. Debbie has to watch for a while, but then sees Tammy’s lip move. When her eyes focus and find her, Debbie scrambles forward.

“Tammy. Tammy, it’s okay.” She sweeps her hand against the edge of her face. “Focus on breathing. Breathing first, okay?”  
Tammy’s eyes are so large, and her lips barely move, but Debbie knows that despite her stillness she is frantic. Amita carefully helps Tammy into Debbie’s arms and she hushes her. She can see the glint of excitement and apprehension in Lou’s eyes, the way she is biting her lip, still clutching Tammy’s hand to her cheek. 

Nine ball sits up and Amita shuffles behind Debbie and they are all around her. Miserably silent tears begin streaming from Tammy’s eyes. Debbie tenderly brushes them away with a finger.   
“It’s okay,” Debbie whispers. “You’re almost through it. Almost there.”  
Tammy looks up at her. Her lips move and Debbie knows she’s trying to breathe and can’t get those muscle to move. 

“Almost there...” Debbie tells her again and smiles confidently.   
A small rasping sound scratches from Tammy’s throat.   
“That’s it.” Debbie looks up and shares a smile with Lou.   
In the minutes that pass Tammy begins gasping, gulping, and is soon sobbing. It’s a release. Debbie understands. She turns Tammy into her shoulder and hugs her, rocking her gently. 

“I know. I know...” Debbie hushes her. She feels tears stinging in her own eyes. Her arms hold Tammy closer, tighter. The sound of Tammy’s crying is heartbreaking and reminds them all of what it was like to take those first breaths. Debbie feels fingers in her hair. She knows it’s Amita. Lou, and then Nine Ball lean into them, and in their shared embrace they all find comfort. 

 

* * *

They find a quiet place in the dim light of a room of song and sensuous velvet. Lou watches Tammy’s eyes following the red silk scarves drift about the room on the necks of the evenings offerings and smiles at the glint of curiosity.

“So how do you feel?” Lou asks.   
“Strange,” Tammy says. She continues to watch the mortals, so Lou shares a look with Debbie. Her dark eyes gleam, as sharp as the smirk on her lips.  
“Overwhelmed,” Tammy adds. 

Debbie admires the woman beside her, the brave mortal she was, and the stunning creature she has become. “I can remember.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really want to thank everyone who supported me and this fic. Everyone. Thank you so, so much. I hope you've enjoyed it :)
> 
> I have a few ideas for my next epic AU. It could be a western gothic. I feel like I need Debbie Ocean to ride into town on a horse.


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